Nigeria was incorporated in 1914 when Frederick Lugard(First Governor-General) amalgamated the two British protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria and the Crown colony of Lagos into a single entity. The primary reason for almalgamation was economic rather than political. It is therefore,...

"Political dynasty" refers to the situation wherein members of the same family are occupying elected positions either in sequence for the same position, or simultaneously across different positions. In the Philippines, political dynasties are prevalent in areas with more severe poverty. Two...

The main purpose of this work is to address a puzzle and suggest strategies towards solutions that are freedom-enhancing. The puzzles: why is there such a tendency towards regionalization and even nationalist protectionism despite the rhetoric of globalization, the structural adjustment policies...

Political dynasties—members of the same family occupying elected positions sequentially for the same position or simultaneously across different positions—have become a common feature in many developing countries with democratic political systems. In the Philippines, for instance, political...

Taxing small deposits used to be a taboo in European politics – but why? This contribution re-assesses the protection of small deposits from an angle that has not received much attention in the current debate: the politico-philosophical, ordo-liberal, and social-political perspectives, arguing...

Political scientists and economists increasingly agree that institutions may influence economic growth, but there is little general agreement on what institutions tend to produce what consequences. We apply public choice insights for a theoretical analysis that may be termed “Madisonian”:...

Economic theory needs a stronger defence against unwise application of mathematics. Mathematicians are trained for abstract thought and not for empirical science. Their contribution can wreak havoc, for example in education with real life pupils and students, in finance by neglecting real world...

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem in social choice finds different interpretations. Bordes-Tideman (1991) and Tideman (2006) suggest that collective rationality would be an illusion and that practical voting procedures do not tend to require completeness or transitivity. Colignatus (1990 and 2011)...

A long tradition in economics explores the association between the quality of formal institutions and economic performance. The literature on the relationship between such institutions and happiness is, however, rather limited, and inconclusive. In this paper, we revisit the findings from recent...

There is much evidence that less democratic countries experience more high-frequency growth volatility. In this paper we report a similar finding about volatility in the medium term: we find evidence that reversals of trend-growth are sharper and more frequent in non-democracies. Motivated by...