This paper formulates a general theory of how political unrest influences public policy. Political unrest is motivated by emotions. Individuals engage in protests if they are aggrieved and feel that they have been treated unfairly. This reaction is predictable because individuals have a...

Can digital information and communication technology (ICT) foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel geo-referenced dataset for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with georeferenced data from multiple sources on the...

We ask whether attitudes toward government play a causal role in the evasion of U.S. personal income taxes. We first use individual-level survey data to demonstrate a link between sharing the party of the president and trust in the administration generally and opinions on taxation and spending...

We suggest a probabilistic voting model where voters' preferences for alternative public goods display habit formation. Current policies determine habit levels and in turn the future preferences of the voters. This allows the incumbent to act strategically in order to influence the probability...

This paper presents new evidence that cronyism reduces long-term economic growth by discouraging firms' innovation activities. The analysis is based on novel establishment survey data from The Arab Republic of Egypt which provides information on establishments' political connections, their...

Governments must decide how to allocate limited resources for infrastructure development, particularly since financing gaps have been projected for the coming decades. Social cost-benefit analysis provides sound project appraisal and, when systematically applied, a basis for prioritization. In...

This is a speech given by Mr. Wolfensohn to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, on January 27, 1998 at Addis Ababa. He presented a development agenda in Africa which covers: human resource development, capacity building, rural development and rural transformation, private sector...

Although there is wide recognition of the negative consequences of policy volatility for countries' long-term economic growth, there is limited empirical work on this subject. One of the reasons is the difficulty of measuring policy volatility over long periods of time, especially in developing...

This paper defines institutions, presents their basic characteristics, and discusses forces for institutional change. It draws on a wealth of research and study by scholars in different fields and follows from the flagship 2002 World Development Report on this topic, including relevant new...