In this paper, I explore the politically contested association between the degree of capitalism, captured by measures of economic freedom, and the risk and characteristics of economic crisis. After offering some brief theoretical considerations, I estimate the effects of economic freedom on...

We explore the potential effects of the first leaders of Sub-Saharan Africa. We first outline a set of theoretical reasons for why leaders may matter particularly at the critical juncture of African independence and why this influence may be persistent. In an unbalanced panel from 40 African...

There is great variation in views on and treatment of minorities such as gay men across the world. We are the first to pinpoint what features of societies that are beneficial to gay men's quality of life by making use of a unique new cross-country dataset covering 110 countries, the Gay...

The Middle East is the most terror-prone region of the world. It is almost exclusively governed by autocratic regimes that often explicitly refer to Islam to justify some of their policies. In this paper, we analyse government reactions to terrorist events in the states that are members of the...

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. In this paper, we revisit the findings from recent cross-country...

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. In this paper, we revisit the findings from recent cross-country...

The World Values Survey contains an item on ownership, which is polled 200 times in 92 countries at the four waves of 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005. It is developed into the CS-score that measures the aggregate mass support for capitalism and socialism. Four hypotheses are advanced and tested to...

This paper tests whether social trust affects total factor productivity (TFP). Using both development and growth accounting, we find strong evidence of a causal positive effect of social trust on the level and growth of TFP. We moreover observe that the effect of social trust on TFP runs through...

Social and cultural determinants of economic institutions and outcomes have come to the forefront of economic research. We introduce religiosity, measured as the share for which religion is important in daily life, to explain institutional quality in the form of property rights and the rule of...