In the last decade the ownership structure of Australia's life insurance industry has undergone a fundamental change. Traditionally, the sector had been dominated by a group of large mutual associations which had historically been the market leaders. In the space of less than a decade, this form...

We start out from the hypothesis that limited government leads to low uncertainty and low transaction costs. If political institutions affect the degree of uncertainty and transaction costs, we formally show they should affect the steady state level of income per capita. The impact of...