In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in...

We construct an axiomatic index of spatial concentration around a center or capital point of interest, a concept with wide applicability from urban economics, economic geography and trade, to political economy and industrial organization. We propose basic axioms (decomposability and...

We investigate how the link between individual schooling and political participation is affected by country characteristics. We introduce a focus on a set of variables - namely factor endowments - which inuence the relative productivity of human capital in political versus production activities....