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Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies?
Mulligan, Casey B.; Sala-i-Martin, Xavier; Gil, Ricard - 2021
Estimates of democracy's effect on the public sector are obtained from comparisons of 142 countries over the years 1960-90. Based on three tenets of voting theory -- that voting mutes policy preference intensity, political power is equally distributed in democracies, and the form of voting...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013224438
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National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa
Michalopoulos, Stelios; Papaioannou, Elias - 2021
We investigate the role of national institutions on subnational African development in a novel framework that accounts both for local geography and cultural-genetic traits. We exploit the fact that the political boundaries in the eve of African independence partitioned more than two hundred...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013224396
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Princes and Merchants : European City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution
DeLong, J. Bradford; Shleifer, Andrei - 2021
As measured by the pace of city growth in western Europe from 1000 to 1800. absolutist monarchs stunted the growth of commerce and industry. A region ruled by an absolutist prince saw its total urban population shrink by one hundred thousand people per century relative to a region without...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013213431
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Economic Backwardness in Political Perspective
Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. - 2021
We construct a simple model where political elites may block technological and institutional development, because of a 'political replacement effect'. Innovations often erode elites' incumbency advantage, increasing the likelihood that they will be replaced. Fearing replacement, political elites...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013246644
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Do Political Institutions Shape Economic Policy?
Persson, Torsten - 2021
Do political institutions shape economic policy? I argue that this question should naturally appeal to economists. Moreover, the answer is in the affirmative, both in theory and in practice. In particular, recent theoretical work predicts systematic eects of electoral rules and political regimes...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013223867
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Consequences of Constitutions
Persson, Torsten - 2021
The paper presents empirical findings regarding the economic policy consequences of constitutional arrangements, in three different dimensions. First, the data are consistent with several theoretical predictions about the consequences of electoral rules and forms of government for fiscal policy...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013233041
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The Farm, the City, and the Emergence of Social Security
Caucutt, Elizabeth M. - 2010
During the period from 1880 to 1950, publicly managed retirement security programs became an important part of the social fabric in most advanced economies. In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. We describe a model economy in which demographics,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012760436
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Debt into Growth : How Sovereign Debt Accelerated the First Industrial Revolution
Ventura, Jaume - 2015
Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain's borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013020642
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Heterogeneous Paths of Industrialization
Huneeus, Federico; Rogerson, Richard - 2022
Industrialization experiences differ substantially across countries. We use a benchmark model of structural change to … countries can generate variation in industrialization experiences similar to those found in the data, including premature …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013300930
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An African Growth Miracle?
Rodrik, Dani - 2014
Africa's recent growth performance has raised expectations of a bright economic future for the continent after decades … of decline. Yet there is a genuine question about whether Africa's growth can be sustained, and if so, at what level. The … industrialization, seem to be operating at less than full power. If African countries do achieve growth rates substantially higher, they …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013052685