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In many areas of the world, a significant part of the cost of obtaining a good or service is the cost of enforcing the contracts entailed in its provision. We present models of markets with endogenous enforcement costs, motivated by studies of rural credit markets. We show that subsidies may have perverse effects under monopolistic competition, increasing prices or inducing exit. Higher prices (interest rates) result from the loss of scale economies or from negative externalities among suppliers. The models are consistent with the puzzling evidence that infusions of government-subsidized formal credit have not improved the terms offered by moneylenders.

When Russia launched mass privatization, it was widely believed that it would create a powerful constituency for the rule of law. That didn't happen. We present a dynamic equilibrium model of the political demand for the rule of law and show that beneficiaries of mass privatization may fail to demand the rule of law even if it is the Pareto efficient "rule of the game." The reason is that uncertainty about the legal regime can lead to asset stripping, and stripping can give agents an interest in prolonging the absence of the rule of law.

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