This paper aims to show that culture is an important determinant of the effectiveness of formal democratic institutions … elections. These results support the view that social capital complements democratic institutions such as elections. …

We document that trust in public institutions--and particularly trust in banks, business and government--has declined … the most suffered the biggest loss in confidence in institutions, particularly in trust in government and the financial … over recent years. U.S. time series evidence suggests that this partly reflects the pro-cyclical nature of trust in …

localized and well-respected administration increased citizens’ trust in local public services. In several Eastern European … countries, communities on both sides of the long-gone Habsburg border have been sharing common formal institutions for a century … Habsburg affiliation increases current trust and reduces corruption in courts and police. Falsification tests of spuriously …

This survey reviews the recent research on trust, institutions and economic development. It discusses the various … institutions and policies can affect trust and promote pro-social behaviors. … measures of trust and documents the substantial heterogeneity of trust across space and time. The conceptual mechanisms that …

public office, institutions to encourage elected officials to keep their campaign promises are weak, and competition for …

enabled these groups to demand, obtain and sustain changes in institutions to protect their property rights. Furthermore, the … existing institutions placed some checks on the monarchy and particularly limited its control of overseas trading activities … the result of capitalist development driven by the interaction of late medieval institutions and the economic …

notably, that evolved institutions are inherently superior to those 'designed'; that institutions must be 'appropriate' and … cannot be 'transplanted'; and that the civil code and other French institutions have adverse economic effects. …

This paper discusses the design of appropriate institutions for trade policy-making in Central and Eastern Europe …

We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites … and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labour … (e.g., competitive markets versus labour repression). The main idea is that equilibrium economic institutions are a …