Coercive isomorphism is a prominent source of institutional change. The literature to date has emphasized how actors that are powerful and legitimate (for example, a national government) may coerce the adoption of reforms by dependent actors (for example, state governments and other...

Checks and balances that limit the discretion of policy-makers reduce the volatility of government expenditure and revenue. While this assumption is at the heart of a large body of empirical work, the association between political institutions and policy volatility has itself been the focus of...

The empirical evidence that links political institutions to economic outcomes has grown dramatically in recent years. However, virtually all of this analysis is undertaken using data from the past three decades. This paper extends this empirical framework by performing a two-century long...