How are committee leaders in legislatures chosen absent seniority norms? This paper argues that the prior political experience of legislators can serve as cues to caucus leaders to reduce adverse selection in a legislature where seniority cannot be the basis…

Studies of authoritarian nations rarely consider the role and activities of regional officials. They are usually assumed to be the involuntary agents of national rulers, or the unwitting victims of local demands for political change. Instead, I argue that regional…

Procampo was launched in 1994 to help the transition from low productivity
activities to high productivity activities, among other policy objectives. We
investigate the effects of Procampo on migration flows from Mexico to third
countries (mainly the US), and the…

Since 1984, U.S. trade policy holds that all bilateral and multilateral trade agreements include provisions that condition the extension of trade benefits on protecting labor rights. However, few of these clauses have monitoring mechanisms, and even among the agreements that…

Why do some terrorist groups cooperate with each other, while others attack each other? Terrorist groups frequently interact. Emerging research shows that these network relationships have important consequences, but it remains unclear why some terrorist groups form ties with other…

Do countries need a large menu of organizational forms? Does the flexibility of a larger organizational menu provide advantages for businesses? This paper explores these questions by studying the choice of organizational form in an underdeveloped civil law country undergoing…

Los habitantes de la Ciudad de México sufren, en promedio, calidad de aire precaria durante gran parte del año. Sin embargo, existen grandes diferencias en la distribución de empresas y tráfico vehicular dentro de la ciudad que junto con patrones…

I conduct a cross-country analysis of the human development index (HDI) components, income, life expectancy, literacy and gross enrolment ratios, using Gray and Purser’s 1970-2005 quinquennial database for 111 countries. 1) A descriptive analysis uncovers a complex pattern of divergence…

In Mexico up to this day there is a debate on whether administrative judges should earn more money; or whether administrative courts should incorporate appellate jurisdiction to better guarantee accountability of the administration. The answer to these questions has not…

In a modern State administrative courts have an important task as guardians of the rule of law. Adjudicating cases where one of the parties is the state herself is a strong form of accountability. In Mexico up to this day…