North (1990) defines institutions as "the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction." Although there are various definitions of institutions and institutional quality, North’s pioneering analysis helps to explain how the...

Why do some societies fail to adopt more efficient political and economic institutions in response to changing economic conditions? And why do such conditions sometimes generate conservative ideological backlashes and, at other times, progressive social and political movements? We propose an...

This paper does three things. First, based on a limited number of theoretically established dimensions, it proposes a new de facto indicator for the rule of law. It is the first such indicator to take the quality of legal norms explicitly into account. Second, using this indicator we shed new...

This paper does three things. First, based on a limited number of theoretically established dimensions, it proposes a new de facto indicator for the rule of law. It is the first such indicator to take the quality of legal norms explicitly into account. Second, using this indicator we shed new...

This paper argues that corruption in Russia is systemic in nature. Low wage levels of public officials provide strong incentives to engage in corruption. As corruption is illegal, corrupt officials can be exposed any time, which enforces loyalty towards the powers that be; thus corruption is a...

We present a simple model that illustrates how democracy may improve the quality of economic institutions. The model further suggests that institutional quality varies more across autocracies than across democracy and that the positive effect of democracy on institutional quality is increasing...