Analysis of the economic effects of constitutional rules has made substantial progress over the last decade. This survey provides an overview of this rapidly growing research area and also discusses a number of methodological issues and identifies underresearched areas. It argues that the next...

According to expressive law theories, expression of values is an important function played by the law. Expressive laws affect behavior, not by threatening sanctions or promising rewards, but by changing individual preferences and tastes and, in some cases, by affecting social norms and values....

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...

De jure judicial independence (JI) is the single most important predictor of de facto JI. In this paper, we describe under what conditions countries are likely to include JI in their constitutions. We describe and analyze both their original choice in this regard as well as change over time...

We study changes in the form of government as an example of endogenously determined constitutions. For a sample of 202 countries over the period 1950–2006, we find that most changes are relatively small and roughly equally likely to be either in the direction of more parliamentarian or more...

A country’s form of government has important economic and political consequences, but the determinants that lead societies to choose either parliamentary or presidential systems are largely unexplored. This paper studies this choice by analyzing the factors that make countries switch from...