This paper documents the persistence of the Southern slave owning elite in political power after the end of the American Civil War. We draw on a database of Texan state legislators between 1860 and 1900 and link them to their or their ancestors' slaveholdings in 1860. We then show that former...

This study investigates the relationship between racial heterogeneity and Medicaid expenditures as a share of state public expenditures in the U.S. states from 1999 to 2010. Extant studies predict that increasing racial heterogeneity reduces the share of expenditure on “productive public...

We claim that a sequential mechanism linking history to development exists: first, history defines the quality of social capital; then, social capital determines the level of corruption; finally, corruption affects economic performance. We test this hypothesis on a dataset of Italian provinces,...

How to soften resistance to state-building efforts by reform losers? This paper highlights the strategy of compensation via the bureaucracy, in which the ruler offers meaningful government offices in exchange for elites’ acceptance of state-building reforms. We empirically explore this...

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 claim that a sequential mechanism linking history to development exists: first, history defines the quality of social capital; then, social capital determines the level of corruption; finally, corruption affects economic performance. We test this hypothesis on a dataset of Italian provinces,...

This article builds on the concept of linked ecologies to present a study of the occupational careers of French colonial governors between 1830 and 1960. We consider empires as the by-product of social entities structuring themselves. Specifically, we analyse the process of empowerment of this...

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...

The notion of state capacity has attracted renewed interest over the last few years, in particular in the study of violent conflict. Yet, state capacity is conceived differently depending on whether the interest lies in the state's power to discourage violent conflict, in its ability to...

We examine the long-term impact of the slave export, one of the most traumatic events in African history, on firm corruption and corruption-related outcomes using data from over 30,000 firms across 41 African countries from 2006 to 2021. Our results show that the slave export is positively...