National leaders, especially in autocratic countries, are often recognized as having significant effects on economic growth. However, existing methods have not credibly obtained reliable individual estimates of such effects. In order to identify the so-called leader effect, we adopt a synthetic...

Governments can play great roles in their countries, regions, and cities; facilitating or leading the resolution of festering problems and opening new pathways for progress. Examples are more numerous than one might imagine and raise an important question: 'how do governments become great?'....

'Leadership' is not a common topic for research in international development. In recent years, however, prominent studies like the 2008 Growth Commission Report noted the importance of leadership in development. This and other studies focused on individual leaders - or heroes - when examining...

This paper empirically evaluates the economic performance of U.S. state governors who came to the position from a business background (CEO governors), focusing on the growth rate of real personal income per capita, unemployment rate, and income inequality. Methodologically, we apply a matching...