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Author: Timothy Besley

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Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Choice and Competition in Public Service Provision

Timothy Besley and James M. Malcolmson

In spite of a range of policy initiatives in sectors such as education, health care and legal services, whether choice and competition is valuable remains contested territory. This paper studies the impact of choice and ...Read more...

16 August 2016

Public Economics Programme Discussion Paper

Aspirations and the Political Economy of Inequality

Timothy Besley

In standard approaches to the political economy of inequality, the income distribution and the preferences of households are taken as fixed when studying how incomes are determined within and between nations. This paper ...Read more...

16 August 2016

Development Discussion Paper

Profit with Purpose? A Theory of Social Enterprise with Experimental Evidence

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

When social benefits cannot be measured, a hybrid organization which selects managers based on motivation can be used to balance profi…ts with a social purpose. This paper develops a model of social enterprise based on s...Read more...

8 November 2013

Development Discussion Paper

Taxation and Development

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

Development Discussion Paper

The Legacy of Historical Conflict Evidence from Africa

Timothy Besley and Marta Reynal-Querol

There is a great deal of interest in the causes and consequences of conflict in Africa, one of the poorest areas of the world where only modest economic progress has been made. This paper asks whether post-colonial confl...Read more...

1 February 2012

Development Discussion Paper

The Regulation of Land Markets: Evidence from Tenancy Reform in India

Timothy Besley, Jessica Leight, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

While the regulation of tenancy arrangements is widespread in the developing world, evidence on how such regulation influences the long-run allocation of land and labor remains limited. To provide such evidence, this pap...Read more...

1 November 2011

Development Discussion Paper

Taxation and Regulation of Bonus Pay

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

We explore the consequence for taxation and regulation of bonus pay when investors are protected by taxpayers from downside risk. The paper develops a model where workers in financial sector firms make decisions about ef...Read more...

1 July 2011

Development Discussion Paper

Fragile States and Development Policy

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

It is widely recognized that fragile states are key symptoms of under-development in many parts of the world. Such states are incapable of delivering basic services to their citizens and political violence is commonplace...Read more...

January 2011

Development Discussion Paper

State Capacity, Conflict and Development

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

We report on an on-going project, which asks a number of questions relevant to the study of state capacity. What are the main economic and political determinants of the state’s capacity to raise revenue and support priva...Read more...

June 2009

Development Discussion Paper

Estimating the Peace Dividend: The Impact of Violence on House Prices in Northern Ireland

Timothy Besley and Hannes Mueller

This paper exploits data on the pattern of violence across regions and over time to estimate the impact of the peace process in Northern Ireland on house prices. We begin with a linear model that estimates the average tr...Read more...

May 2009

Development Discussion Paper

The de Soto Effect

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

This paper explores the consequences of creating and improving property rights so that fixed assets can be used as collateral. This has become a cause célèbre of Hernando de Soto whose views are influential in debates ab...Read more...

April 2009

Development Discussion Paper

Property Rights and Economic Development

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

This chapter develops a unified analytical framework, drawing on and extending the existing literature on the subject, for studying the role of property rights in economic development. It addresses two fundamental and re...Read more...

February 2009

Development Discussion Paper

The Incidence of Civil War: Theory and Evidence

Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson

This paper studies the incidence of civil war over time. We put forward a canonical model of civil war, which relates the incidence of conflict to circumstances, institutions and features of the underlying economy and po...Read more...

February 2009

Development Economics Paper

Just Rewards? Local Politics and Public Resource Allocation in South India

Timothy Besley, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

This paper uses data on elected village councils in South India to examine the political economy of public resource allocation. We find that the pattern of policy-making reflects politicians' self-interest. Elected counc...Read more...

October 2007

Development Economics Paper

Making Autocracy Work

Timothy Besley and Masayuki Kudamatsu

One of the key goals of political economy is to understand how institutional arrangements shape policy outcomes. This paper studies a comparatively neglected aspect of this - the forces that shape heterogeneous performan...Read more...

May 2007

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Electoral Bias and Policy Choice: Theory and Evidence

Timothy Besley and Ian Preston

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Working or Shirking? A Closer Look at MPs’ Expenses and Parliamentary Attendance

Timothy Besley and Valentino Larcinese

This paper studies determinants of MPs expense claims in Parliament using the data released under the freedom of information act in 2004. Using a multiple regression framework, we correlate expenses with three sets of va...Read more...

November 2005

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Implementation of Anti-Discrimination Policy: Does Judicial Selection Matter?

Timothy Besley and A. Abigail Payne

One of the most striking changes in labor market policy of the past fifty years has come in the form of legislation to limit discrimination in the workplace based on race, gender, disability and age. If such measures are...Read more...

August 2005

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability

Timothy Besley and Andrea Prat

It has long been recognized that the media play an essential role in government accountability. However, even in the absence of censorship, the government may influence news content by maintaining a “cozy” relationship w...Read more...

August 2005

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India

Timothy Besley, Vijayendra Rao and Rohini Pande

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and social status of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics a®ect politician behavior while in o±ce. Education increases the ...Read more...

August 2005

Development Economics Paper

Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India

Timothy Besley, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

August 2005

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Fiscal Restraints and Voter Welfare

Timothy Besley and Michael Smart

This paper explores the logic of fiscal restraints in a political agency model with both moral hazard and adverse selection. The role of the political process is both to discipline incumbents who may act against the publ...Read more...

July 2005

Political Economy and Public Policy Paper

Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States

Timothy Besley, Torsten Persson and Daniel M. Sturm

One of the most cherished propositions in economics is that market competition by and large raises consumer welfare. But whether political competition has similarly virtuous consequences is far less discussed. This paper...Read more...

June 2005

Theoretical Economics Paper

Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

A unifying theme in the literature on organizations such as public bureaucracies and private non-profits is the importance of missions, as opposed to profit, as an organizational goal. Such mission-oriented organizations...Read more...

November 2003

Development Economics Paper

Can Labour Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India

Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess

This paper investigates whether the industrial relations climate in Indian States has affected the pattern of manufacturing growth in the period 1958-92. We show that pro-worker amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act ...Read more...

February 2002

Development Economics Paper

The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India

Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess

Gaps in welfare attainment between boys and girls in China have attracted international attention. In this paper demand analysis is used to try and uncover the factors which may be driving the emergence of the gender gap...Read more...

December 2000

Development Economics Paper

Public-Private Partnership for the Provision of Public Goods: Theory and an Application to NGOs

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

This paper analyzes the role of public and private responsibility in the provision of public goods. We emphasise that a typical public good will require many different inputs which raises the possibility of partnerships ...Read more...

August 1999

Development Economics Paper

Land Reform, Poverty Reduction and Growth: Evidence from India

Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess

In recent times there has been a renewed interest in relationships between redistribution, growth and welfare. Land reforms have been central to strategies to improve the asset base of the poor in developing countries th...Read more...

October 1998

Theoretical Economics Paper

Read My Lips: The Political Economy of Information Transmission

Timothy Besley and Rohini Pande

The paper studies credible information transmission by governments. A group of heterogenous individuals have to make private investment and labour supply decisions while relying on the government for information about in...Read more...

July 1998

Theoretical Economics Paper

Analyzing the Case for Government Intervention in a Representative Democracy

Timothy Besley and Stephen Coate

The welfare economic method for analyzing the case for government intervention is often criticised for ignoring the political determination of policies. The standard method of accounting for this critique studies the cas...Read more...

September 1997

Theoretical Economics Paper

Lobbying and Welfare in a Representative Democracy - (Now published in 'Review of Economic Studies', 68 (2001), pp.67-82.)

Timothy Besley and Stephen Coate

This paper studies the impact of lobbying on political competition and policy outcomes in a framework which integrates the citizen-candidate model of representative democracy with the menu-auction model of lobbying. Posi...Read more...

September 1997