This paper provides a framework to assess correlations between the change of institutional functions (political centralization, plurality, rule of law, security of property, economic liberty, measured by 12 indicators) and improvements in human development (income, education, health) and...

“Marxism,” wrote the American legal historian William E. Nelson in 1985, “is not about to disappear as an attractive ideology or as a powerful political force in the world.” The prediction was not well timed. The Marxism of the socialist bloc was anything but an attractive ideology or a...

From the 19th century to the 1940's, Quebec remained poorer and less economically developed than the rest of Canada in general and poorer than Ontario in particular. This placed Quebec at the bottom of North American rankings of living standards. One prominent hypothesis for the initiation of...