This paper reviews the political economy of economic growth in post-communist economies making the transition to free markets, focusing on the role of economic policy and institutions. We test the hypothesis that better institutions, measured in terms of economic freedom, contribute to growth....

We use factor analysis to summarize information from various macroeconomic indicators, effectively producing coincident indicators for the Chinese economy. We compare the dynamics of the estimated factors with GDP, and compare our factors with other published indicators for the Chinese economy....

This article produces a system-level composite indicator on population health in publicly provided primary health care. We first summarize information from various indicators of care by principal component analysis (PCA). We then regress the costs of care against these indicators to evaluate...

This paper discusses the growth differentials between Chinese provinces geared to agricultural activities and those that have focused on industrial production over three decades of economic reform. Following Hansen and Prescott's (2002) model, we suggest that the differences between regions stem...

This paper develops a theory of consumer boycotts. To affect a firm's ethical behavior, moral consumers refuse to buy from an unethical firm. Consumers who do not care about ethical behavior may join the boycott to (falsely) signal that they do care, increasing the disciplinary power of consumer...