This volume comprises several studies and papers published in the last decades. They have been selected and ranged so that to provide a minimum of coherence concerning the phases which Romania has crossed in her way to the advanced socio-economic system of European type: transition to the market...

In this paper, we examine the impact of institutional quality on the returns on key drivers of economic growth in 230 European Union (EU) NUTS-2 regions from 2009 to 2017. To estimate region-specific elasticities, we employ a latent class modelling approach, considering the quality of government...

There is an ongoing debate within the economic growth and development literature whether institutions or human capital are more decisive for explaining differences in economic performance across countries. Our study adds further arguments to this discussion by focusing on 35 European countries....

While economists have tended to focus on specific public policies when developing recommendations, the achievement of welfare objectives might depend more on the quality of policies than their content. This paper develops several measures of the qualities of policies across countries, arguing...

The analytical framework of polycentrism—extensively developed by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom—is one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in political economy. According to this theory, social systems with multiple layers of decision-making and a mix of shared and individual...

We study parties' optimal ideological cohesion across electoral rules, when the following trade-off is present: A more heterogenous set of candidates is electorally appealing (catch-all party), yet, it serves policy-related goals less efficiently. When the rule becomes more disproportional, thus...

While economists have tended to focus on specific public policies when developing recommendations, the achievement of welfare objectives might depend more on the quality of policies than their content. This paper develops several measures of the qualities of policies across countries, arguing...

Both institutional quality and institutional stability have been argued to stimulate economic growth. But to improve institutional quality, a country must endure a period of institutional change, which implies at least a little and possibly a lot of institutional instability. We investigate the...