Is global competition for mobile capital harmful (less public goods) or beneficial (less government waste)? This paper combines both aspects within a generalized version of the comparative public finance model (Persson, Roland and Tabellini, 2000) by introducing multiple countries and endogenous...

We repeat a survey we did in the waning days of the Soviet Union (Shiller, Boycko and Korobov, AER 1991) comparing attitudes towards free markets between Moscow and New York. Additional survey questions, from Gibson Duch and Tedin (J. Politics 1992) are added to compare attitudes towards...

We study trends in income inequality across U.S. states and counties 1960-2019 using a mix of administrative and survey data sources. Both states and counties have diverged in terms of per-capita pre-tax incomes since the late 1990s, with transfers serving to dampen this divergence. County...

A number of recent empirical studies have cast doubt on the "modernization theory" of democratization, which posits that increases in income are conducive to increases in democracy levels. This doubt stems mainly from the fact that while a strong positive correlation exists between income and...

A growing body of work suggests that education offers a wide-range of benefits that extend beyond increases in labor market productivity. Improvements in education can lower crime, improve health, and increase voting and democratic participation. This chapter reviews recent developments on these...

The federal government stands poised to exercise its constitutional right to regulate financial markets, an area traditionally left to competing provincial securities commissions. The current state of securities regulation renders impotent US-style takeover defences, such as poison pills and...

The conventional view in the direct democracy literature is that spending against a measure is more effective than spending in favor of a measure, but the empirical results underlying this conclusion have been questioned by recent research. We argue that the conventional finding is driven by the...

We study theoretically and empirically whether natural resource windfalls affect political regimes. We document the following regularities. Natural resource windfalls have no effect on the political system when they occur in democracies. However, windfalls have significant political consequences...

Over the last two centuries, many countries experienced regime transitions toward democracy. We document this democratic transition over a long time horizon. We use historical time series of income, education and democracy levels from 1870 to 2000 to explore the economic factors associated with...

A long-standing debate pits those who think economic development leads to democratization against those who argue that both result from distant historical causes. Using the most comprehensive estimates of national income available, I show that development is associated with more democratic...