This chapter reports the results of experiments that were designed to test the effectiveness of reciprocity as a contract enforcement device. It turns out that reciprocity generates a significant increase in effort levels relative to the prediction based on selfish preferences. Moreover, it...

This chapter presents the theory of international environmental agreements (IEAs). It explains what treaties do (or should do); when and why they succeed or fail; and whether they can be designed better. It focuses on the main questions that the literature on this topic has tried to answer,...

We survey the literature on index crime, paying particular attention to spatial issues. We note the contrasting descriptive traditions of Lombroso (characteristics matter) and Beccaria (incentives matter), and the contrasting policy traditions of incapacitation (predict who will offend and keep...

The past forty years have witnessed a remarkable transformation in horizontal merger enforcement in the United States. With no change in the underlying statute, the Clayton Act, the weight given to market concentration by the federal courts and by the federal antitrust agencies has declined...

The fragmented nature of national and international legal and dispute settlement regimes, and the formalistic nature of the customary international law rules on treaty interpretation and conflicts of laws, offer little guidance on how national and international judges should respond to the...

We study a general equilibrium model in which entrepreneurs finance investment with optimal financial contracts. Because of enforceability problems, contracts are constrained efficient. We show that limited enforceability amplifies the impact of technological innovations on aggregate output....

In this paper we set up a symmetric two-country model with trade costs and international ownership to study the transfer pricing decisions by two multinationals operating in markets with Cournot competition. We let governments choose both the corporate profit tax rate and the level of...

The use of information technology at work has emphasised a tension between two distinct principles: firstly, the inviolability of employees' private lives and private communications and, secondly, the rights of employers to enjoy their private property and to exercise their managerial powers....

This paper finds that law enforcement interventions during the Mexican Drug War (MDW) hindered local export growth. We leverage exogenous variation in drug enforcement from the close election of mayors affiliated with the national ruling party during the MDW. Firms servicing the same markets but...

Screening requirements are common features of fraud and corruption mitigation efforts around the world. Yet imposing these requirements involves trade-offs between higher administrative costs, delayed benefits, and exclusion of genuine beneficiaries on one hand and lower fraud on the other. We...