We use data for 143 developing countries during the period 1980-2004 to study empirically the relationship between multilateral aid (as proxied by IDA flows) and support for US foreign policy, as measured by voting alignment at the United Nations General Assembly. Our identifica�tion...

Putnam (1993) argues that (i) center-northern Italy has developed faster than southern Italy because the former was better endowed with social capital; and (ii) that the endowments of social capital across Italian territories have been highly persistent over centuries. This paper provides an...

During the last two decades a number of emerging economies have become deeply engaged in technology-intensive production. This has been reflected in a shift in their international trade specialization from labor-intensive towards capital-intensive goods and in rapid productivity gains across all...

We empirically investigate the role of civic capital (proxied by voter turnout) in Italy's economic development in the second half of the Twentieth century. Using a unique dataset at the city level, we show that over a fifty-year span voter turnout was steadily correlated with economic...