This paper studies a new mechanism that allows political elites from a non-democratic regime to survive a democratic transition: connections. We document this mechanism in the transition from the Vichy regime to democracy in post-World War II France. The parliamentarians who had supported the...

This paper studies a new mechanism that allows political elites from a non-democratic regime to survive a democratic transition: connections. We document this mechanism in the transition from the Vichy regime to democracy in post-World War II France. The parliamentarians who had supported the...

In the past decade a comparative law and economics literature has emerged that is largely organized around an effort to explain differences in country economic performance in terms of differences between common law and civil code systems. Assumptions about differences between common law and...

The new comparative economics is largely organized around an effort to explain differences in country economic performance in terms of differences between common law and civil code systems. Assumptions about differences between common law and civil code regimes and the correspondence between...

Why is it that some countries adopted growth enhancing institutions earlier than others during the early-modern period? We address this question through a comparative study of the evolution of French and Ottoman fiscal institutions. During the sixteenth century both countries made extensive use...