In this paper, I argue that religion matters for the emergence of democracies and dictatorships. Religion is defined as demand for public goods. Different types of religious collectives reflect different tradeoffs between centralized resource distribution and market rewards. Religions are...

The relationship between female empowerment and economic development is one of the most complex examples of reverse causality, yet multiple scholars acknowledge that female empowerment promotes economic progress. One of the crucial aspects of female empowerment is female entrepreneurship;...

A broad literature suggests that political regimes matter for the growth effect of natural resources. However, while several studies have concentrated on the difference between democracies and autocracies in this respect, an important topic overlooked so far is the differences between varieties...

We study the determinants of corruption in a sample of 40-odd authoritarian polities at the turn of the 21st century. Recent studies have proposed several parallel mechanisms potentially relevant for variations in the extent of corruption in authoritarian regimes. We put these various theories...

In times of crises, democracies face the challenge of balancing effective interventions with civil liberties. This study examines German states' response during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the interplay between civil liberties and public health goals. Using state-level...

This article examines a specific form of state capitalism in Egypt under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, characterized by the central role of the military in economic affairs. Following the events of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the Egyptian military not only secured its position as a key...

We investigate the geographical concentration of representatives and the distribution of fiscal transfers both theoretically and empirically. We develop a model which predicts that funds to an area are positively correlated with the number of representatives residing in that area. Our empirical...

There is abundant evidence on individual preferences for policies that reduce national inequality, but only little evidence on preferences for policies addressing global inequality. To investigate the latter, we conduct a two-year, face-to-face survey experiment on a representative sample of...

We use survey responses by firms to examine the firm-level determinants and effects of political influence, their perception of corruption and prevalence of bribe paying. We find that: (a) measures of political influence and corruption/bribes are uncorrelated at the firm level; (b) firms that...