Social trust can facilitate access to alternative sources of finance to firms when formal finance is scarce or entails large transaction costs, especially in economies with less developed financial systems. Since exporting firms are relatively more dependent on external finance, we find that...

Social attitudes (beliefs) are increasingly being recognized as factors that are important in determination of the outcomes that interests economists. In the United States as Glaeser and Ward (2006) have shown, the differences in beliefs on social issues such as acceptability of legal abortion...

We hypothesize that exports of differentiated products, which entail greater upfront costs, increase more as financial reforms take place. We find strong and robust empirical support of this hypothesis with a comprehensive set of measures of reforms encompassing the banking sector, interest...

This research assesses the effects of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards in international trade by introducing a new concept, bridge to cross (BTC), with product standards. The BTC in this paper is the regulatory gap between the exporting and importing countries with regard to any...

This research assesses the effects of mycotoxins regulations on international trade flows. Mycotoxins regulations reflected in the mandatory maximum residue limits impose costs on the producers that could take the form of both variable and fixed costs. Little empirical research exists on the...

There is widespread belief that exposure to television has harmful effects on children's cognitive development. Most studies that point to a negative correlation between hours of television watching and cognitive outcomes, fail to establish causality. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of...

Young adult homeownership rates in the U.S. are considerably lower than in Britain, even though overall homeownership rates in the two countries are almost identical. By implication, U.S. young adults have a slower rate of transition into homeownership. This paper employs a common theoretical...

There is a widespread belief that exposure to television has harmful effects on children's cognitive development. While a few studies on historical data contradict this belief most research that uses recent data points to a negative correlation between hours of television viewing and cognitive...