Institutional bottlenecks refer to path-dependent institutional arrangements which contribute to economic stagnation. In his research, Timur Kuran identifies several historical institutional bottlenecks which contributed to economic decline and underdevelopment of the Middle East. We use Kuran's...

A country's political and economic institutions are critical for economic prosperity. The literature abounds with institutional measures, precisely because institutions are not one dimensional. We use panel-unit-root and cointegration tests to examine the time-series properties of several...

Media, Development, and Institutional Change investigates mass media's profound ability to affect institutional change and economic development. The authors use the tools of economics to illuminate the media's role in enabling and inhibiting political-economic reforms that promote development

We argue that mass media is a mechanism of institutional evolution and identify three important effects media has on institutions. The "gradual effect" involves media contributing to marginal changes in existing institutions. The "punctuation effect" involves media catalyzing rapid institutional...

A large literature establishes the connection between institutions and economic performance. Comparatively little work, however, explores the process of institutional change. How do development-enhancing institutions emerge where they do not already exist? This paper investigates this question...