-2000 period. Our main conclusion is that race, rather than political institutions and education policies, is the main force …We investigate the long term determinants of political and economic outcomes over a new data set composed of … 1950s. Finally, we turn to the determinants of a broad array of development indicators for the year 1960 and for the 1960 …

by analyzing a panel dataset covering the 1940-2000 period at the state level. Consistently with our previous findings …

-specific pre-colonial institutions in shaping comparative regional development in Africa. We utilize information on the spatial … we document a positive cross-sectional association between national institutions and regional economic development … proxied by tribal pre-colonial political institutions and class stratification exert even today a significant effect on …

We investigate the role of national institutions on regional development in a novel framework. We exploit the fact that … correlation between formal national institutions and economic development has to be carefully interpreted. … the arbitrary political boundaries in the eve of African independence partitioned more than two hundred ethnic groups …

We investigate the role of deeply-rooted pre-colonial ethnic institutions in shaping comparative regional development … association between pre-colonial ethnic political centralization and regional development. This pattern is not driven by … positive association between pre-colonial political complexity and contemporary development also holds within pairs of adjacent …

-country analysis reveals a strong positive correlation between pre-colonial political centralization and contemporary development (and …We examine the link between pre-colonial statehood and contemporary regional African development, as reflected in …-colonial political organization. …

countries. We also document that the strong link between pre-colonial political centralization and regional development -as … shaping African development. First, using recent surveys from Sub-Saharan African countries, we document that individuals … pre-colonial political organization. Building on insights from the African historiography, we review recent works showing …

We construct a simple model where political elites may block technological and institutional development, because of a … replaced. Fearing replacement, political elites are unwilling to initiate change, and may even block economic development. We … show that elites are unlikely to block development when there is a high degree of political competition, or when they are …