During the millennium 250 B.C. to 750 A.D., China's long-run economic performance was characterized by a self-sufficient agrarian economy with per-capita GDP and population remaining more or less constant. In the mid-8th century AD, a major civil war initiated a transition away from a...

This paper is a preliminary exploration of the politics of financial market development. Using panel data for 197 countries over 34 years, we test a range of variables and hypotheses regarding the politics of financial market development. We find only weak support for the legal origins...

Does economic inequality diminish the capacity of democracies to extract voluntary sacrifice? And does inequality undermine citizen's willingness to do their civic duty when the state is under threat? We address these questions by linking income inequality with people's willingness to fight for...

How do America's chief executives get what they want out of the legislative process when their only formal power comes when bills arrive on their desks? We argue that executives are often able to get what they want by using their veto pen as a positive power and by relying upon a variety of...

In the context of a collaborative project on the meaning and legacy of a cultural construction commonly called ‘the West,' and specifically its key Anglo-American dimension, this paper provides a comparative examination of two key bilateral relationships at the core of that construction:...

This paper develops a model of electoral targeting in multi-party systems. Seat-share maximizing parties can use policy transfers to win votes by 1) converting undecided voters, 2) mobilizing loyal supporters, or 3) lowering the turn-out of voters loyal to other parties. The model allows for the...

The Bundestag elections of 2009 meant a crushing defeat for the German social democrats. Never before had a party faced losses at such a high percentage in post-war Germany. The paper argues that these losses were not incurred at the margin but at the core of the social democrats' traditional...