After a decade of research on the relationship between institutions and growth, scholars in this field seem to be divided. Economic institutions perform well in growth regressions and a body of literature argues that this supports the key importance of institutions for development. Other authors...

In this paper, we study starting point bias in double-bounded contingent valuation surveys. This phenomenon arises in applications that use multiple valuation questions. Indeed, response to follow-up valuation questions may be influenced by the bid proposed in the initial valuation question....

Public economics proposed various models that intend to determine the optimal provision of public goods based on individual preferences. To provide decision makers with empirical recommendations, economists thus need to elicit individual preferences, and more precisely the marginal rate of...

We examine the statistical performance of inequality indices in the presence of extreme values in the data and show that these indices are very sensitive to the properties of the income distribution. Estimation and inference can be dramatically affected, especially when the tail of the income...