This paper presents a survey of the literature on property rights and economic growth. It discusses different theoretical mechanisms that relate property rights to economic development. Lack of protection of property rights can result in slow economic growth through different channels:...

This paper investigates the determinants of economic growth emphasizing the role of institutional quality, social fragmentation, and increasing global integration on recent growth experience. Our longitudinal data consists of 103 countries covering the period 1992-2005. We find that democracies...

This research paper discusses the role of institutions in the rapid growth and successful international integration of Switzerland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In analysing the emergence and consolidation of the institutions whose existence was crucial, the paper looks...

The paper emphasizes the transition in Russia and the role institutions played before and during the process. In Russia, a big bang approach was applied. That is to say, transition was conducted all of a sudden, omitting important underlying reforms. This practice should function as a shock...

We examine the effect of generalized trust on long-term economic growth. Unlike in previous studies, we use Bayesian model averaging to deal rigorously with model uncertainty and attendant omitted variable bias. In addition, we address endogeneity and assess whether the effect of trust on growth...