How to import modern Western Institutions to suppress economic growth in underdeveloped countries? Russian experience and some warnings for newcoming reformers The monograph «Institutional Constraints on Modern Economic Growth" deals with the most dangerous obstacles standing in the way of long...

Advocates of the war against discrimination and affirmative action claim it is necessary to set up additional regulatory procedures that will defend interests of minorities who, previously, were not given enough chances to succeed. Because there is no set definition of a minority who suffered...

The link between an introduction of the universal suffrage and the growth of government spending has been established in some literature (Meltzer, Richard, 1981, Aidt et al., 2006, Funk and Guthmann, 2006). In this article we try to identify a more detailed mechanism behind that link. So, we...

“Improvements” in the mechanisms of democracy for making decisions about providing taxpayer-financed public goods can lead the economy in the same direction as authoritarianism. Such a by-product may be insignificant, but, even if so, a tradition of abridging democracy, similarly to an...

Today’s exaggerated, deferent focus on democracy (the ability of voters by means of elections to change the government, to cause power rotation) has led to some overvaluations of the institutions associated with this type of government and their ability to cure society of all ills. Thus, some...

In this chapter we are addressing the numerous cases of government failures in countries with transit economies and weak democratic traditions when the state is called upon to provide “pure public goods” (defense, security, and justice). In other words, the subject matter of this chapter...

The voter - bureaucrat is locked into a situation of a conflict of interests: as a conscientious citizen, he or she should support optimal expenditure levels for providing certain public goods, but as a person whose wellbeing and career depend on the volume of expenditures for providing public...

Adam Smith pointed out public respect, prestige as significant component of compensation "for some employment" ("honorableness... of employment"). We assumed, the public moral sanction on success (Weber), public demand for "self-made man" should correlate positively with number of businessmen...

The present article traces the dynamics of the priorities chosen by leading leftist parties in Israel vis-a-vis the functions of the state. During the period of the British Mandate they, like all leftist parties, maintained anti-militaristic views. Leaders of the Left more than once accused...

This publication is about the institutional barriers which reduce the social policy outcome in the Russian Federation. Many efforts of the executive power and legislators undermine the incentives of the physical persons to invest in the social sphere both in the financial form and in the form of...