Dictatorships are not all the same: some are purely autocratic but many exhibit a full panoply of seemingly democratic institutions. To explain these differences, we develop a model in which dictators may need cooperation to generate rents and may face a threat of rebellion. Dictators have two...

Does the cost of calling someone across a border depend on political institutions? We argue that, compared to autocracies, democratic governments have stronger incentives to regulate the provision of telephone service efficiently. In contrast, autocracies have incentives to limit communication...