Different political regimes have principals that possess different in- formation regarding agents' behavior. This paper studies how this difference affects the comparative efficiency of corruption control between a democratic regime and an authoritarian regime. We ob- serve that such comparative efficiency depends heavily on the anti- corruption mechanism specified. We find that a yardstick mech- anism is an optimal mechanism, and establish that, under such a mechanism, comparative efficiency depends on the quality, not only the quantity, of information. Furthermore, we make clear that high-quality information is that which captures the pattern of variation in the agents' hidden information. This study also sheds light on the nature of the costliness of corruption by arguing that the variability in hidden information across corrupt agents is an essential reason for the inefficiency caused by corrupt behavior.

This paper establishes a relationship between levels of dollariza- tion and the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus. We show that low dollarized economies experience an appreciation of currency from an increase in fiscal stimulus this causes a positive wealth effect leading to an increase in output. In contrast, highly dollarized economies experience a negative response of output in response to increases in government spending. This suggests that fear of fu- ture depreciation of currency in highly dollarized economies stifles the response in output from fiscal stimulus.

Those who control spaces are able to regulate what moves through them and the speed at which they do so; as such, space has a tendency of being reorganized in favor of those who move more quickly at greater expenditures of energy. This project studies how one population, a small group of elderly Korean immigrants have claimed a space – the seats and tables at a McDonald's restaurant – but are being driven from it for a number of reasons, the one I address in particular being based on the principle that speed is a signifier of difference worthy of consideration alongside and, indeed, intimately connected to race, class, and gender.