Is the Welfare State sustainable? How has it fared in the last few decades? What are the main challenges facing the Welfare State today and in the near future? This Working paper aims at offering the reader with elements to answer, if temporarily, this questions regarding the present and future...

This paper exploits cross-country variation in the degree of geographical isolation, prior to the advent of sea-faring and airborne transportation technologies, to examine its impact on the course of economic development across the globe. The empirical investigation establishes that prehistoric...