Abstract: This paper seeks to estimate the economic growth effect of constitutional provisions for property rights protection. It does so using the unique situation in formerly communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus where all but two introduced new constitutions after...

Using cross-sectional data for 76 countries, we apply instrumental variable techniques based on pronoun drop, temperature and monarchies to demonstrate that historical trust levels predict several indicators of current welfare state design, including universalism and high levels of regulatory...

We look at the effect of religiosity on social trust, defined as the share of a population that thinks that people in general can be trusted. This is important since social trust is related to many desired outcomes, such as growth, education, democratic stability and subjective well-being. The...

Both institutional quality and institutional stability have been argued to stimulate economic growth. But to improve institutional quality, a country must endure a period of institutional change, which implies at least a little and possibly a lot of institutional instability. We investigate the...

It is often claimed that small and young firms account for a disproportionately large share of net employment growth. We conduct a meta analysis of the empirical evidence regarding whether net employment growth rather is generated by a few rapidly growing firms – so-called Gazelles – that...

In this paper we ask whether the withdrawal of a major employer (Pharmacia) from a region in Sweden (Uppsala) has had a negative effect on employment growth. We explore the possibility that the exit of Pharmacia may not have had a negative effect on the total employment in the region. It might...

Since individuals demanding formations of new parties face a collective action problem, I inquire why people form new parties, and why this political strategy became increasingly popular between 1973 and 2002 in Swedish municipalities. Case-studies indicate that ‘strong emotions’ – i.e....

The Korean economy severely suffered from the Asian financial crisis, and is well known for rapid recovery in the years following. However, the recovery was mainly due to successful restructuring by a limited number of large-sized enterprises (LSEs). The small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)...

Using the economic freedom index and the newly developed KOF-index of globalization, it is shown that the Scandinavian welfare states have experienced faster, bigger and more consistent increases in these areas, compared to the smaller European and the so called liberal welfare states. The...

The view about systematic irrationality of investors and managers in investment with reference to information and communication technology (ICT) with no effects on productivity growth is called productivity paradox. Research suggests that ICT return in developed nations is significant and...