Most pre-crisis explanations of the various corporate governance systems have considered the separation between ownership and control to be an advantage of the Anglo-American economies. They have also attributed the failure of other countries to achieve these efficient arrangements to their...

Using annual data for 18 OECD countries over the period 1980-2004, we investigate how labour and financial factors interact to determine unemployment by estimating a dynamic panel model using the system generalized method of moments (GMM). We show that the impact of financial variables depends...

Recent theories of the Long Divergence between Middle Eastern and Western European economies focus on Middle Eastern (over-)reliance on religious legitimacy, use of slave soldiers, and persistence of restrictive proscriptions of religious (Islamic) law. These theories take as exogenous the...

This paper discusses the historical and social origins of the bifurcation in the political institutions of China and Western Europe. An important factor, recognized in the literature, is that China centralized state institutions very early on, while Europe remained politically fragmented for...

This paper studies the factors driving changes in judicial independence (JI) as incorporated in constitutions. Two indicators of constitutionally safeguarded JI are constructed. Variations in these indicators are identified based on changes in the constitutions of as many as 100 countries that...

This paper analyzes how mobility of post-graduate skilled workers and students across different countries affects the quality level of higher education and the way education is financed. We start by examining a closed economy. In the presence of imperfect credit markets the education level with...