This paper hypothesizes and establishes empirically that climate change policies spread more easily between closely related countries, leading to worldwide differences in climate change policy performance. Exploiting variations across countries, the study provides evidence that genetic distance...

This article establishes empirically that a persistent culture of “rugged individualism”, captured by exposure to the American westward-moving frontier from 1790 to 1890, undermines pro-climate perceptions, environmental performance, and climate change preparedness across counties in the...

This paper offers new empirical evidence on the widely acknowledged growth-enhancing effect of state capacity by estimating heterogeneous panel data models under a common factor framework. Results are suggestive of substantial reductions in the economic significance of the positive impact of...

It is well established in the long-term development literature that deeply rooted institutions are the fundamental drivers of comparative prosperity across the world. This study contributes to this line of inquiry by investigating the extent to which the quality of institutions helps shape...