Christopher J. Boudreaux

Market institutions and income inequality

Some economic analysis concludes that capitalist institutions tend to produce growing income inequality. Piketty (2014 Capital in the Twenty-First Century., Cambridge: Harvard University Press) is a recent example. This paper uses two different datasets on income shares of the top 10% to analyze the effect of market institutions on income inequality. The same empirical specifications give different results for the two datasets. This empirical investigation suggests that whether market institutions generate income inequality is an open question.

Jumping off of the Great Gatsby curve: how institutions facilitate entrepreneurship and intergenerational mobility

Income inequality is often attributed to declines in income mobility following the Great Gatsby curve, but this relationship is of secondary importance in determining the factors of income mobility if one considers that changing rules is more important than changing outcomes under defined rules. Rather, improvements in institutional quality are hypothesized to increase income mobility by allowing entrepreneurs the freedom to pursue their dreams. This paper is the first to empirically analyze the institutional determinants behind entrepreneurship, and their effect on income mobility. The findings from a cross-country analysis suggest that secure property rights and less corruption are associated with less income persistence, leading to higher income mobility, independent of the Great Gatsby effect. This suggests that reducing corruption and protection of property rights increase income mobility through the channels of entrepreneurship.

Institutional Quality and Innovation: Some Cross Country Evidence

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the cross-country variation in innovation and propose that it can be explained by the presence of market institutions using the Global Innovation Index. Design/methodology/approach - This paper uses ordinary least squares with region and OECD fixed effects to test whether more economic freedom is associated with more innovation. Findings - The findings reveal that the effect of market institutions on innovation is promoted by both knowledge and creativity. When innovation is broken down into its component measures, the results suggest that a high-quality legal system is associated with more creativity and free trade is associated with greater knowledge. Originality/value - These findings provide evidence that economic freedom matters for innovation through both creativity and knowledge, particularly through the protection of property rights and the legal system and free trade. Policy makers desiring to spur innovation may want to examine the level of freedom in private ownership and the reduction of trade barriers as a prerequisite for innovation policy.

Cross-Country Determinants of Early-Stage Necessity and Opportunity-Motivated Entrepreneurship: Accounting for Model Uncertainty: JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Model uncertainty is one of the most pervasive challenges in the social sciences. Cross‐country studies in entrepreneurship have largely ignored this issue. In this paper, we evaluate the robustness of 44 possible determinants of early‐stage opportunity‐motivated entrepreneurship (OME) and necessity‐motivated entrepreneurship (NME) that are broadly classified in four groups: (1) economic variables, (2) formal institutions, (3) cultural values, and (4) legal origins and geography. The results, which are based on a representative world sample of up to 73 countries, suggest that institutional variables associated with the principles of economic freedom are most robustly correlated with OME and NME. Our findings also identify net income inequality and Scandinavian legal origins as weakly robust predictors of both types of entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, we find that log GDP per capita is only a weakly robust predictor of NME, but not OME. We discuss implications for future research.

A Natural Experiment to Determine the Crowd Effect Upon Home Court Advantage

Spectator effects represent a central concept in (behavioral) sports economics. A thorough understanding of the phenomenon promises to further our understanding as to the nature of performance production under pressure. In traditional home advantage studies, it is difficult to isolate the net crowd effect upon relative team performance. In a typical sports setting, multiple factors change at once for a visiting team. Experimental evidence suggests that supportive crowds may hinder task performance. In that it serves as home stadium to two National Basketball Association teams, the Staples Center in Los Angeles offers a rare natural experiment through which to isolate the crowd effect upon competitive output. Each team possesses equivalent familiarity with built environment, and teams face similarly sparse travel demands prior to games between one another. However, the team designated as “home team” in a contest enjoys a largely sympathetic crowd due primarily to season ticket sales. Moreover, crowd effects are sizable in motivating a home team win, raising the likelihood of such an event by between an estimated 21 and 22.8 percentage points. The point estimate implies that essentially the entire home advantage between the two teams is attributable to the crowd effect.

Is institutional improvement possible

ABSTRACT A substantial literature shows that economic prosperity is dependent on the quality of economic institutions. Countries with low-quality institutions remain poor while countries with high-quality institutions prosper. Improvement in institutional quality brings with it economic growth. Poor countries must improve their economic institutions to escape poverty; so, if a poor country’s institutional structure is unlikely to improve, that suggests dismal prospects for economic growth and an escape from poverty. An examination of institutional quality over 30 years indicates that countries with low-quality institutions have improved their institutional quality, which demonstrates that poor countries are not stuck with low-quality institutions. They can improve their institutions, and consequently, can generate economic growth and escape poverty.

Economic Institutions and the Durability of Democracy

Why do some democracies persist while others break down? Some studies have suggested that economic development decreases the likelihood of authoritarian reversal, which is consistent with Milton Friedman’s argument that economic freedom is necessary for political freedom. An empirical investigation of countries that have transitioned to democratic governments since World War II shows that higher quality economic institutions increase the durability of those democratic governments. This supports Friedman’s observation about the relationship between economic and political institutions.

Does the Free Market Facilitate Moral Corruption? Responses and Criticisms

The free market is often subject to scrutiny from both politicians and the press, and because the free market promotes self-interested behavior, recent dialogues have asked if the free market also promotes moral corruption. While the market process cannot prevent all occurrences of moral corruption, we argue that the market system does operate as a corrective mechanism in many instances. In the cases where market responses fail to curb moral corruption, we argue that tolerating some moral corruption is a second best solution that might be necessary to prevent further bad outcomes from occurring (e.g., mass poverty).

Innovation, Institutions, and Entrepreneurship

The literature has emphasized the role of market institutions in fostering entrepreneurship with a purpose of examining entrepreneurship and growth. However, the real driving force is innovation, not entrepreneurship, and many studies treat entrepreneurship as only a proxy for innovation. We use the Global Innovation Index to directly measure the effect of market institutions on innovation and find a very strong positive correlation. We also find that the effect of market institutions on innovation becomes stronger in developed economies and democracies but is unrelated to education. Lastly, the legal system, sound money, and free trade contribute the most to innovation.

Bend it like FIFA: Corruption on and off the Pitch

Throughout 2015, many of FIFA’s (Federation Internationale de Football Association) top executives were arrested, facing charges of bribery, fraud, and money laundering. On December 21, 2015, FIFA’s own Ethics Committee decided to ban its long-serving president, Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, for eight years. FIFA has long been plagued by allegations of bribery, but has, until recently, been able to get around them, like a well-curved free-kick shot. Being organized as a not-for-profit organization while generating large revenues, FIFA has enjoyed the services of highly paid executives and employees. For-profit firms are regulated largely through the market process, with stockholders having strong incentives to maintain close oversight and demanding transparency of transactions, and being subject to takeover bids. Not-for-profit organizations receive far less oversight, but are subject to regulation from both the country where they are incorporated and the country where they operate. As a monopolist in rule-making and holding a world championship tournament for the world’s most popular sport, FIFA executives and board members are in a position to demand payoffs and/or can punish its adversaries with its venue selection or by banning national teams from tournament participation.