The Brussels Effect, once emblematic of the EU's alleged influence in shaping global regulations, has now become a factor contributing to global regulatory fragmentation. The EU must recalibrate its trajectory towards a liberal and rules-based trading order, prioritizing widespread regulatory...

Early states like China, India, Italy and Greece have been experiencing more rapid economic growth in recent decades than have later-comers to agriculture and statehood like New Guinea, the Congo, and Uruguay. We show that more rapid growth by early starters has been the norm in economic...

Max Weber attributed the higher economic prosperity of Protestant regions to a Protestant work ethic. We provide an alternative theory, where Protestant economies prospered because instruction in reading the Bible generated the human capital crucial to economic prosperity. County-level data from...