One frequently given explanation for why autocrats maintain corrupt and inefficient institutions is that the autocrats benefit personally even though the citizens of their countries are worse off. The empirical evidence does not support this hypothesis. Autocrats in countries with low-quality...

Constitutional political economy has focused heavily on designing constitutional rules sufficient to constrain governmental power. More attention has been devoted to designing rules that are effective constraints than on the institutions that would be required to enforce them. One problem is...

The study of entrepreneurship often focuses on the activities of the entrepreneur. While entrepreneurship is undertaken by individuals, the degree to which individuals are entrepreneurial, and the directions in which their entrepreneurial actions take, are the result of the institutional...