The surge of maritime piracy in the Gulf of Aden is often related to lawlessness and poverty in Somalia. We set up a simple model to describe the choice of becoming a pirate in a setting with an industrialized and a developing country which both engage in fishing in the same waters. As a result...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and subsistence needs matter. It shows that if per capita income is sufficiently high, a windfall gain in productivity triggers behavior that leads to higher growth (the normal reaction). The same shock...

I analyse firms organisational choices when they face uncertainty about institutional conditions in foreign locations with heterogeneous final good producers and incomplete contracts. As firms learn about the conditions abroad, the increasing offshoring activity increases competition in the...

We analyze how foreign direct investment (FDI) affects employment security. Using administrative micro data for German employees allows us to follow individual workers over time. FDI intensity is measured at the sectoral level, which enables us to take into account direct as well as indirect...