The book focuses on the linkages between institutions, inequality and development. It analyzes formal political institutions, in particular the relationship between democracy and human development. It also centers on informal social institutions leading to the exclusion of population groups such...

The problem of odious debt typically arises when a despotic regime has incurred substantial sovereign debt and is then succeeded by a less-despotic, possibly democratic, regime that seeks to repudiate that debt. There is no agreed-upon method for dealing with attempts to repudiate odious debt....

When bad economics is good politics / Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Hilton L. Root -- Order, disorder, and economic change: Latin America versus North America / Douglass C. North, William Summerhill, and Barry R. Weingast -- Political institutions, political survival, and policy success / Bruce...

Large-N studies suggest that democracy aid is effective, while multiple small-N investigations call such findings into question. This paper accounts for this contradiction and significantly improves our understanding of democracy aid effectiveness by disaggregating democracy aid into specific...