Corruption is a function of its return relative to engaging in productive activities. This paper presents an approach for thinking about the institutional features of societies and the resulting amount of corruption. The empirical results suggest that political competition is more important than...

Cross-country growth regressions have become an increasingly common tool in empirical development research. But these regressions typically do not attempt to distinguish among countries in different stages of development. Two empirical methods are used to test for such differences. Several of...

Cross-country growth regressions have in recent years become a major growth industry. The most common purpose of this work has been to investigate the determinants of economic growth. But it is also possible to use the existing growth data to determine the extent to which policy choices help or...