Raymond Fisman

"Traditional explanations for indirect trade through an entrepot have focused on savings in transport costs and on the role of specialized agents in processing and distribution. We provide an alternative perspective based on the possibility that entrepots may facilitate tariff evasion. Using data on direct exports to mainland China and indirect exports via Hong Kong SAR, we find that the indirect export rate rises with the Chinese tariff rate, even though there is no legal tax advantage to sending goods via Hong Kong SAR. We undertake a number of extensions to rule out plausible alternative hypotheses based on existing explanations for entrepot trade"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

"We analyze the relationship between financial development and inter-industry resource allocation in the short- and long-run. We suggest that in the long-run, economies with high rates of financial development will devote relatively more resources to industries with a 'natural' reliance on outside finance due to a comparative advantage in these industries. By contrast, in the short-run we argue that financial development facilitates the reallocation of resources to industries with good growth opportunities, regardless of their reliance on outside finance. To test these predictions, we use a measure of industry-level 'technological' financial dependence based on the earlier work of Rajan and Zingales (1998), and develop new proxies for shocks to (short run) industry growth opportunities. We find differential effects of these measures on industry growth and composition in countries with different levels of financial development. We obtain results that are consistent with financially developed economies specializing in 'financially dependent' industries in the long-run, and allocating resources to industries with high growth opportunities in the short-run"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

"What is a market? To most people it is a shopping center or an abstract space in which stock prices vary minutely. In reality, a market is something much more fundamental to being human, and it affects not just the price of tomatoes but the boundaries of everything we value. Reading the newspapers these days, you could be forgiven for thinking that markets are getting ever more efficient--and better. But as Tim Sullivan and Ray Fisman argue in this insightful book, that view is far from complete. For one thing, efficiency isn't always a good thing--illegal markets are very often more efficient than legal ones, because they are free of concern for laws and human rights. But even more importantly, the chatter about efficiency has obscured a much broader conversation about what kind of economic exchange we actually want. Every regulation, every sticker price, and every sale is part of an ever-changing ecosystem--one that affects us as much as we affect it. By tracing 50 years of economic thought on this subject, Fisman and Sullivan show how markets have evolved--and how we can keep making them better. This leads to fascinating and surprising insights, such as: why your $10,000 used car is likely to sell for $2,000 or less; why you should think twice before buying batteries on Amazon; and why it's essential that healthy people buy medical insurance. In the end, The Inner Lives of Markets argues for a new way of thinking about how you spend your money--it shows that every transaction you make is part of a grand social experiment. We are all guinea pigs running through a lab maze, and the sooner we realize it, the more effectively we can navigate the path we want"--

Evidence from Uganda confirms that corruption retards development even more than taxation does.

Empirical estimates suggest that fiscal decentralization in government spending is associated with lower government corruption.

"Why do members of Al Qaeda have to submit travel and expenses reports? How do you create incentives for the police force, or for priests? What are managers good for? We create organisations because they are an efficient way of doing something we couldn't do alone. We join organisations because we are inspired by their mission, or their payslip. But once we're inside, these organisations rarely feel efficient or inspiring. In The Org, Ray Fishman and Tim Sullivan explain the trade-offs that every organisation makes, arguing that this everyday dysfunction is in fact actually inherent in the very nature of orgs. Woven throughout The Org are fascinating stories of organisation ranging from Google and McDonald's, to Al Qaeda and the island of Samoa. The Org tells us how the office really works. As such it is required reading for anyone who wants to come to terms with the frustrations of their workplace, or to work their way up the org" -- Publisher description.