Over 10 years ago, Feld and Voigt (2003) introduced the first indicator for objectively meas-uring the actual independence of the judiciary and demonstrated its utility in a large cross-section of countries. The indicator has been widely used, but also criticized. This paper pre-sents more...

Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might,...

Recently, several Muslim countries have ratified new constitutions. In this paper, we ask two questions: first, whether Muslim influence has a discernible impact on the content of such constitutions and, second, whether it has an impact on constitutional reality. More precisely, we are...

A common argument in the trust literature is that high-trust cultures allow efficient commercial contracts to be shorter, covering fewer contingencies. We take this idea to the topic of social contracts. Specifically, we ask whether social trust affects the length and detail of constitutions....