Klappentetxt: Seit 1870 hat sich in Europa die Zahl der jährlichen Arbeitsstunden pro Kopf halbiert. Im gleichen Zeitraum produzieren wir 18-mal mehr pro Stunde als vor 130 Jahren. Wieso müssen wir denn alle den Gürtel enger schnallen? Die Politik hat keine Antwort darauf gefunden, dass der...

Are structural reforms growth enhancing? Is the effectiveness of reforms constrained by a country's distance from the technology frontier or by its institutional environment? This paper takes a new and comprehensive look at these questions by employing a novel dataset that includes several kinds...

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...

This paper examines whether corruption can be an efficiency enhancing adaptation to poor institutional environments. Prior research on this question has not taken into account the heterogeneity of corruption or the possibility that petty bureaucratic corruption in the form of bribery may grease...

The purpose of this paper is to test whether institutional governance and its performance is a main driving force to achieve a positive relationship between natural resources and economic growth in the long run. The main objective is to ascertain what kind of institutional governance would be...

This article reviews the use of the concept of political instability in economic research, the importance of which has been growing in recent years due to its potentially profound economic consequences. The article explores this concept by working through the definitions, dimensions, and methods...

[enter Abstract Body]In this chapter, we review the recent and growing literature on medium-term growth patterns. This strand of research emerged from the realization that for most countries economic development is a highly unstable process; over a few decades, a typical country enjoys periods...