The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central the... more The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central theme of research in economics. This study explores voting on a scheme of intergroup competition, which facilitates cooperation in a social dilemma situation. Experimental results show that the competitive scheme fosters cooperation. Competition is popular but the electoral outcome depends strongly on specific voting rules of institutional choice. If the majority decide, competition is almost always adopted. If likely losers from competition have veto power, it is often not, and substantial gains in efficiency are foregone.
The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central the... more The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central theme of research in economics. This study explores voting on a scheme of intergroup competition, which facilitates cooperation in a social dilemma situation. Experimental results show that the competitive scheme fosters cooperation. Competition is popular but the electoral outcome depends strongly on specific voting rules of institutional choice. If the majority decide, competition is almost always adopted. If likely losers from competition have veto power, it is often not, and substantial gains in efficiency are foregone.
This paper uses five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to analyse... more This paper uses five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to analyse land issues in Viet Nam from a number of different angles. The VARHS provides panel data at plot as well as household level and I use this rich data set to present descriptive results on landlessness, land fragmentation, land market activities, and land property rights. I use plot level, fixed effects regressions to investigate the effects of land titles (Land Use Certificates) on household investment. Results show that land titling has a strong and statistically significant effect on household investment in irrigation, although this effect is only present in upland areas.
This paper exploits five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to inv... more This paper exploits five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to investigate issues of social and political capital in rural Viet Nam. I analyse membership of the Communist Party, 'mass organizations' (Farmers' Union, Women's Union, etc.) and other voluntary organizations, trust, and the significance of family ties in economic transactions (e.g. the share of land tenants who are relatives of their landlord). The paper also presents fixed effects regressions exploring the effects of social and political capital on household income. Results indicate positive returns to Communist Party membership, trust and access to informal insurance.
This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional ... more This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional lending, where US political interests are proxied by voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly on issues identified as important by the US Department of State. In contrast to previous studies we find that the US exerted a significant influence on IDA lending during the period 1993–2000. We demonstrate that the influence was both statistically as well as economically significant. Finally, we demonstrate that our result is robust with respect to the omission of the IDA Country Performance Rating index.
We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation and wh... more We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation and whether this relationship is influenced by exposure to local corruption, using data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1,300 participants across rural Vietnam. Our results show that inequality adversely affects aggregate contributions. Within groups with heterogeneous endowments, individuals with high endowments contribute a significantly smaller share than those with low endowments. The effect of inequality on cooperation is further exacerbated by corruption. We find that beliefs about others’ contributions are lower in heterogeneous groups in the presence of corruption, and this is an important mechanism explaining our results.
We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation, and w... more We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation, and whether this relationship is influenced by the quality of local institutions, as proxied by corruption. We use representative data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1,300 participants across rural Vietnam. Our results show that inequality adversely affects aggregate contributions, and this is on account of high endowment individuals contributing a significantly smaller share than those with low endowments. This negative effect of inequality on cooperation is exacerbated in high corruption environments. We find that corruption leads to more pessimistic beliefs about others’ contributions in heterogeneous groups, and this is an important mechanism explaining our results. In doing so, we highlight the indirect costs of corruption that are understudied in the literature. These findings have implications for public policies aimed at resolving local collectiv...
The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central the... more The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central theme of research in economics. This study explores voting on a scheme of intergroup competition, which facilitates cooperation in a social dilemma situation. Experimental results show that the competitive scheme fosters cooperation. Competition is popular but the electoral outcome depends strongly on specific voting rules of institutional choice. If the majority decide, competition is almost always adopted. If likely losers from competition have veto power, it is often not, and substantial gains in efficiency are foregone.
The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central the... more The ability of groups to implement efficiency‐enhancing institutions is emerging as a central theme of research in economics. This study explores voting on a scheme of intergroup competition, which facilitates cooperation in a social dilemma situation. Experimental results show that the competitive scheme fosters cooperation. Competition is popular but the electoral outcome depends strongly on specific voting rules of institutional choice. If the majority decide, competition is almost always adopted. If likely losers from competition have veto power, it is often not, and substantial gains in efficiency are foregone.
This paper uses five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to analyse... more This paper uses five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to analyse land issues in Viet Nam from a number of different angles. The VARHS provides panel data at plot as well as household level and I use this rich data set to present descriptive results on landlessness, land fragmentation, land market activities, and land property rights. I use plot level, fixed effects regressions to investigate the effects of land titles (Land Use Certificates) on household investment. Results show that land titling has a strong and statistically significant effect on household investment in irrigation, although this effect is only present in upland areas.
This paper exploits five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to inv... more This paper exploits five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to investigate issues of social and political capital in rural Viet Nam. I analyse membership of the Communist Party, 'mass organizations' (Farmers' Union, Women's Union, etc.) and other voluntary organizations, trust, and the significance of family ties in economic transactions (e.g. the share of land tenants who are relatives of their landlord). The paper also presents fixed effects regressions exploring the effects of social and political capital on household income. Results indicate positive returns to Communist Party membership, trust and access to informal insurance.
This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional ... more This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional lending, where US political interests are proxied by voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly on issues identified as important by the US Department of State. In contrast to previous studies we find that the US exerted a significant influence on IDA lending during the period 1993–2000. We demonstrate that the influence was both statistically as well as economically significant. Finally, we demonstrate that our result is robust with respect to the omission of the IDA Country Performance Rating index.
We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation and wh... more We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation and whether this relationship is influenced by exposure to local corruption, using data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1,300 participants across rural Vietnam. Our results show that inequality adversely affects aggregate contributions. Within groups with heterogeneous endowments, individuals with high endowments contribute a significantly smaller share than those with low endowments. The effect of inequality on cooperation is further exacerbated by corruption. We find that beliefs about others’ contributions are lower in heterogeneous groups in the presence of corruption, and this is an important mechanism explaining our results.
We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation, and w... more We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation, and whether this relationship is influenced by the quality of local institutions, as proxied by corruption. We use representative data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1,300 participants across rural Vietnam. Our results show that inequality adversely affects aggregate contributions, and this is on account of high endowment individuals contributing a significantly smaller share than those with low endowments. This negative effect of inequality on cooperation is exacerbated in high corruption environments. We find that corruption leads to more pessimistic beliefs about others’ contributions in heterogeneous groups, and this is an important mechanism explaining our results. In doing so, we highlight the indirect costs of corruption that are understudied in the literature. These findings have implications for public policies aimed at resolving local collectiv...
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Papers by Thomas Markussen