In this paper we present a political economy approach in order to explain the degree of financial openness for an economy. In the model, entrepreneurs, who may have good or bad projects, vote for policies, which are proposed by selfish politicians. Two political frictions (ideological adherence...

This paper examines the determinants of the diffusion of state lotteries as a process of policy innovation. After more than 100 years of prohibition, U.S. states began to establish lotteries in the 1960s. The article uses statistical event history analysis to show that the adoption and diffusion...