This paper is concerned with welfare effects of self-regulation. It considers one group of heterogeneous producers modelling incentives they face when collectively deciding about production and trade of a commodity and employing a technology that take into account the trade-off between quality...

In this paper, we investigate factors affecting total household consumption and poverty in Uganda using household survey data. Our analysis indicates that household wellbeing can be improved by expanding education at all levels (primary, secondary, and university), expanding formal employment,...

Replaced with revised version of paper 12/15/05.

This paper studies the links between private politics, environmental performance of firms and regulatory activity by the government. Following the terminology coined by Baron (2001), "private politics" refers to the individual or collective actions initiated by public interest and activist...

It has been well documented in the literature that ethnicity matters significantly in the determination of savings. In particular, African-American savings lag far behind that of other ethnic groups. Similarly, the literature also provides evidence of the long-lived nature of institutions and...

As part of a recent anti-corruption campaign, the Brazilian government began to audit the municipal expenditure of federally-transferred funds. Using these audit reports, we construct a unique data set of political corruption to test whether reelection incentives affect the level of corruption...

We present a transfer-seeking model of political economy in which the size of the transfer is determined endogenously, and in which over-dissipation of rents is predicted even under conditions of risk-neutrality and perfect rationality. We implement an empirical test of this model by collecting...

We estimate an econometric model of coca production in Colombia. Our results indicate that coca eradication is an ineffective means of supply control as farmers compensate by cultivating the crop more extensively. The evidence further suggests that incentives to produce legal substitute crops...

This study examines the change over time in agricultural congressional market power and production concentration using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and concentration ratios. Results indicate that the number of congressional districts representing the production of several crops has declined...

Political economy determinants of questionable technical barriers applied to U.S. agricultural exports are evaluated using PROBIT and Poisson regression techniques. Results indicate the incidence of such barriers can increase when domestic agriculture is large relative to consumption, when...