I review theories and evidence on labor market policies and institutions in an international context. These include collective bargaining, minimum wages, employment protection laws, unemployment insurance (UI), mandated parental leave, and active labor market policies. Scandinavia and Central...

To investigate the relation between trust and formal institutions, we analyze bilateral trade patterns in a sample of 16 European countries between 1996-2009. Trust in trading partners has a significant positive effect on bilateral trade. However, our results suggest that trust and formal...

Institutions are important for proper economic performance, but are replaceable by trust or other social norms. We show that when proper institutions and trust are missing, integrity of the individuals can replace them. We construct a model of a transactions-based economy with contracts...

This is Part 2 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...

This is Part 1 of a two-part paper which surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth. The paper provides a critical scrutiny of a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth literature. It shows that private-order institutions have not historically...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I re-examine the theories put forward by La...

This paper empirically studies the impact of the quality of political institutions on the link between central bank independence and inflation. Making use of data on the evolution of central bank independence over time and controlling for possible nonlinearities, we employ interaction models to...

This paper studies the transmission mechanism from family culture to economic institutions, by analyzing the impact of the within family organization on the original design of the public pension systems. We build a simple OLG model with families featuring either weak or strong internal ties....

An emerging economic literature over the past decade has made use of international tests of educational achievement to analyze the determinants and impacts of cognitive skills. The cross-country comparative approach provides a number of unique advantages over national studies: It can exploit...