We thank Lakshmi Aiyar, Shawn Cole, Stijn Claessens, Oded Galor, Adair Morse, Mark Rosenzweig, Jeremy Stein, as well as participants in seminars at the IMF, the NBER Political Economy, Corporate Finance, and Growth Workshops, M.I.T., Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the WFA...

Economists have argued that a high concentration of land holdings in a country can create powerful interest groups that retard the creation of economic institutions, and thus hold back economic development. Could these arguments apply beyond underdeveloped countries with backward political...