Traffic accidents result in 1 million deaths annually worldwide, though the burden is disproportionately felt in poorer countries. Typically, fatality rates from disease and accidents fall as countries develop. Traffic deaths, however, regularly increase with income, at least up to a threshold...

Recent studies have identified various negative effects of public sector corruption. We add to these by considering the association between corruption and deaths due to major earthquakes. After developing a brief theoretical model of the relation between these two variables we test the...

Ethnic tensions may restrict economic growth through a number of infrastructure channels. We extend this literature by (1) using a broad measure of ethnic tensions, (2) considering a variety of measures of social infrastructure for a panel of 87 countries across 16 years and (3) explicitly...

In general, given a particular set of institutions, the greater a county’s per capita income, the more extensive will be its provision of goods and services that require concerted public action. We contend that one of the most important aspects of institutions in this regard is public sector...