There are two different types of media bias. One bias, which we refer to as ideology, reflects a news outlet's desire to affect reader opinions in a particular direction. The second bias, which we refer to as spin, reflects the outlet's attempt to simply create a memorable story. We examine...

When world trade is costly, a country can profitably industrialize only if its domestic markets are large enough. In such a country, for increasing returns technologies to break even, sales must be high enough to cover fixed setup costs. The authors suggest two conditions conducive to...

This paper presents two propositions about corruption. First, the structure of government institutions and of the political process are very important determinants of the level of corruption. In particular, weak governments that do not control their agencies experience very high corruption...

Who should enforce laws or contracts: judges or regulators? Many Coasians, though not Coase himself, advocate judicial enforcement. We show that the incentives facing judges and regulators crucially shape this choice. We then compare the regulation of financial markets in Poland and the Czech...

In this paper we investigate a neglected aspect of financial systems of many countries around the world: government ownership of banks. We assemble data which establish four findings. First, government ownership of banks is large and pervasive around the world. Second, such ownership is greater...

The Progressive Era of the early twentieth-century U.S. saw significant growth of government regulation of business. We model the choice of law enforcement strategy between private litigation over accidents, regulation of precautions, a combination of the two, and doing nothing. Any of these...

During the 1990s, Russia underwent an extraordinary transformation from a communist dictatorship to a multi-party democracy, from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, and from a belligerent adversary of the West to a cooperative partner. Yet a consensus in the US circa 2000 viewed...