This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the effect of economic and political inequality on institutions. The current understanding suggests that unequal societies develop exploitative and inefficient institutions. Empirical research - which is scant, and has mainly...

This Special Section builds on cutting edge developments in the literature on institutional change and its link to economic development and throws fresh light on this link from both a microeconomic (firm and household level) and a macroeconomic (country and cross country level) perspective. The...

There is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how institutions change. This paper provides a...