The understanding of the economic effect of formal institutional rules has progressed substantially in recent decades. These formal analyses have tended to take for granted that institutional arenas such as Congress are the places where decision-making takes place. That is a good approximation...

This policy brief takes stock of the research on government capabilities undertaken at the Inter-American Development Bank, highlights the relevance of government capabilities for generating better policies and higher levels of development, summarizes what has been learned about the origins of...

This paper uses data from the Argentine House of Representatives to study the relationship between legislative effort and political success, as measured by reelection, becoming a leader of the House, and moving to higher political positions. It is found that more effort is associated with a...

This paper proposes an agenda for the study of the determinants and the processes by which strong policymaking institutions emerge, with emphasis on the most central democratic institution: the legislature. It reviews extant theories of institutionalization, and proposes further ways of...

This paper argues that institutionalization is an equilibrium phenomenon and is associated with better policies and better results in terms of economic development. In support of this argument is presented a theoretical model that extends the space of feasible actions for political actors,...

This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of policies and institutional reforms as dependent on the structure of political incentives for national and subnational political actors. The paper studies political incentive structures at the subnational level and the mechanisms...

This paper considers the effects of trade unions on the education sector in Argentina. We have provided a substantial amount of new information and we have found useful preliminary results on some of the channels of union influence on the performance of this crucial sector. We find that those...

La teoría del "jugador con poder de veto" sostiene que un mayor número de jugadores con poder de veto disminuye las probabilidades de cambio; por su parte, las políticas estables ayudan a mantener los compromisos pero pueden limitar la capacidad de adaptación ante circunstancias cambiantes....

Veto player theory argues that a higher number of veto players lowers the likelihood of change; in turn, policies that do not change help to sustain commitments but may prevent adaptation to changing circumstances. This paper challenges that claim of veto player theory by arguing that policy...

This paper develops a framework for analyzing different policymaking styles, their causes and their consequences in Latin America, finding that lower institutionalization and greater use of alternative political technologies (APTs) are more likely the lower the cost of using these technologies,...