trusting attitude than West Germans. This suggests a negative effect of communism in East Germany versus democracy in West … Germany on social and institutional trust. However, the experience of democracy by East Germans since reunification did not … more than a decade of democracy, have the same levels of social distrust as shortly after the collapse of communism. In …

equilibrium theory with heterogeneous skills predicts a complementarity between trade and political regimes. Openness should …

democracy. To address the potential endogeneity of economic growth, we use variation in precipitation, temperatures, and … reduces the short-run likelihood of institutional change toward democracy. Output contractions due to adverse weather shocks …

public schooling. We develop a theory which integrates private education and fertility decisions with voting on public … theory are consistent with state-level and micro data from the United States as well as cross-country evidence from the PISA …

confidence in the ability to learn raises incentives, while confidence in the level of human capital lowers incentives for …