Political and economic rights are envisaged as the outcome of an ongoing bargain between citizens and their rulers. Over the long run, this constitutive process shapes the development of both the economy and the state. Globalization, however, corresponds to a period where both the market and...

The process of development is linked to the rise of an integrated and competitive economy and polity that allow a maximal division of labor and innovation. This process relies on two intertwined dynamics. First, in the establishment of the rule of law, legal instruments are appropriated by those...

Just as medieval municipal republics surrendered to national sovereigns in the past, incumbent states may be replaced in the future by an alternate, global public order. Citizens and merchants would obtain more equal rights, better market infrastructures, and a more efficient provision of public...

This article reviews the history literature on the Champagne fairs and points to reasons why Avner Greif's (2006) model of collective responsibility and inter-city reprisals may not apply. First, with no substantial local community of merchants, mutual dissuasion could not offer credible...

Since the early 1997 paper by La Porta et al., a growing body of research has argued that ‘legal origins’ have a country-specific, time-invariant effect on property rights and economic development. Following the methodology of La Porta et al., an original database of 51 bankruptcy laws has...