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 rising levels of democracy. We find that primary schooling, and …

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and … establish the proposition that institutions cause growth are constructed to be conceptually unsuitable for that purpose. We also … variety of additional evidence, suggest that a) human capital is a more basic source of growth than are the institutions, b …

An influential thesis often associated with De Tocqueville views social mobility as a bulwark of democracy: when … force making democracy less stable in societies with high social mobility: when the median voter expects to move up … conflicting preferences of her “future selves,” and that the evolution of institutions is determined through the implicit …

wealth tends to undermine democracy. Given high oil prices, some observers see the country as virtually condemned to …

democracy, with better quality institutions, and higher level of economic development …We provide evidence that a history of democracy at the local level is associated with contemporary democracy at the … national level. Auxiliary estimates show that a tradition of local democracy is also associated with attitudes that favor …

In this paper we revisit the relationship between democracy, redistribution and inequality. We first explain the … theoretical reasons why democracy is expected to increase redistribution and reduce inequality, and why this expectation may fail … to be realized when democracy is captured by the richer segments of the population; when it caters to the preferences of …

representative democracy. The basic association, however, is conditioned on the relative strength of the indigenous groups within a … extends and qualifies a substantive qualitative literature, which has found in local democratic institutions of medieval … Europe a positive impulse towards the development of representative democracy. It shows that contemporary regimes are shaped …