There are two innovations in the paper as compared to the previous literature on democracy and growth. First, we consider not only the level of democracy, but also changes in this level in the 1970s-1990s as measured by increments of Freedom House political rights indices. Second, the...

There are two innovations as compared to the previous literature on democratization and growth. First, not only the level of democracy is taken into account, but also changes in this level in the 1970s-1990s as measured by the political rights indices of the Freedom House. Second, the...

We suggest a dynamic game theoretic model to explain why resource abundance may lead to instability of democracy. Stationary Markov perfect equilibria of this game with four players – Politician, Oligarch, Autocrat and Public (voters) – are analyzed. Choosing a rate of resource rent tax,...

There are two innovations in the paper as compared to the previous literature on democracy and growth. First, we consider not only the level of democracy, but also changes in this level in the 1970s-1990s as measured by increments of Freedom House political rights indices. Second, the...

We analyze data on sustainability of democratic regimes in resource rich countries and suggest a two-period model to explain why resource abundance may lead to instability of democracy in some countries, but does not create any difficulties for democratic system in other ones. Our central idea...

The purpose of the present Evaluation Study is to discuss the methodological problems researchers are facing in gauging the impact of aid on economic growth. The discussion is nontechnical and aimed at an audience without much prior knowledge in the fields of macroeconomics and econometrics. The...

The purpose of the present evaluation study is to discuss the empirical studies that attempt to estimate the impact of foreign aid on economic growth. The study draws on a previous evaluation study (Dalgaard and Hansen, 2009), which introduces the general econometric methodology involved in...

In this article, we report on the incidence of punch-card and other voting equipment by ethnicity, incomes and other variables, combining county-level demographic data from the Census Bureau with county-level data on voting equipment collected by Election Data Services, Inc. Our findings, widely...

The question of why some people vote in American national elections and others do not has been the focus of a vast literature in social science. Numerous empirical regularities have been established, such that we now know "who votes" and who doesn't, in the sense that various demographic...

Every four years, more than 2% of voters fail to cast a valid vote in the U.S. presidential contest. The 2000 election highlighted the fact that many intended votes are voided because of voter confusion associated with complicated ballot designs or voting equipment. Using survey data, this study...