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Full-Text Articles in Economics
Political Legitimacy In Historical Political Economy, Avner Greif, Jared Rubin
Political Legitimacy In Historical Political Economy, Avner Greif, Jared Rubin
ESI Working Papers
Political legitimacy has long been recognized in the social sciences as an integral component of governance. It encourages obedience without the threat of force, thus lowering governing costs and improving the efficacy of policies. This chapter begins by overviewing the extensive literature on political legitimacy, classifying studies by whether they are based on the beliefs (regarding the legitimacy of the authority) or effectiveness (good governance is legitimate governance). Among the studies focusing on beliefs, most take legitimacy as an exogenous element of political authority. We develop a conceptual framework to study how beliefs regarding political legitimacy form endogenously and impact …
Who Withdraws First? Line Formation During Bank Runs, Hubert János Kiss, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, Alfonso Rosa-Garcia
Who Withdraws First? Line Formation During Bank Runs, Hubert János Kiss, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, Alfonso Rosa-Garcia
ESI Working Papers
We study how lines form in front of banks. In our model, depositors choose first the level of effort to arrive early at the bank and then whether or not to withdraw their deposit. We argue that the informational environment (i.e., the possibility of observing the action of others) affects the emergence of bank runs and should, therefore, influence the line formation. We test this prediction experimentally. While the informational environment has no effect on the line formation when we look at the average level of effort, our findings suggest that the reasons to arrive early at the bank varies …