Research on the economic consequences of corruption has been hampered by the inability to directly measure corruption. Using an innovative methodology that allows respondents to report individual experiences with corruption while minimizing self-incrimination and an objective diagnostic to...

We study the diffusion of policy by examining how the policy opinions of Americans are influenced by the policy choices of foreign governments. Using survey experiments, we find limited evidence that foreign governments' policy choices influence American public opinion. Our results show that...

Despite broad skepticism about the benefits of globalization, the majority of U.S. states have offered lucrative tax incentives to attract investment. The size of these incentives is generally considered too large to be welfare enhancing, and many economists are skeptical of the effectiveness of...

There is a growing literature on how natural resources affect both economic performance and political regimes. In this paper we add to this literature by focusing on how natural resource wealth affects the incentives of governments to uphold contracts with foreign investors across all sectors....

Research on the economic consequences of corruption has been hampered by the inability to directly measure corruption. Using an innovative methodology that allows respondents to report individual experiences with corruption while minimizing self-incrimination and an objective diagnostic to...

Research on the economic consequences of corruption has been hampered by the inability to directly measure corruption. Using an innovative methodology that allows respondents to report individual experiences with corruption while minimizing self-incrimination and an objective diagnostic to...

The paper investigates whether the impact of regulations on entrepreneurship depends on corruption. We first test whether regulations robustly deter firm entry into the markets. Our results show that some regulations are indeed important determinants of entrepreneurial activity. Specifically,...

This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative...