Three important aspects of development—per capita income, state capabilities, and (the absence of) political violence—are correlated with each other at the country level. This article discusses the causes of such development clusters and highlights two explanations: common economic,...

Investments in fiscal capacity?economic institutions for tax compliance?are an important feature of economic development. This paper develops a dynamic model to study the evolution of fiscal capacity over time. We contrast a social planner's investment path with politically feasible paths. Three...

This article offers a unified approach for studying political violence whether it emerges as repression or civil war. We formulate a model where an incumbent or opposition can use violence to maintain or acquire power to study which political and economic factors drive one-sided or two-sided...

This paper develops a simple model to analyse how a lack of political competition may lead to policies that hinder economic growth. We test the predictions of the model on panel data for the US states. In these data, we find robust evidence that lack of political competition in a state is...

Low-income countries typically collect taxes of between 10 to 20 percent of GDP while the average for high-income countries is more like 40 percent. In order to understand taxation, economic development, and the relationships between them, we need to think about the forces that drive the...

Economists generally assume that the state has sufficient institutional capacity to support markets and levy taxes. This paper develops a framework where "policy choices" in market regulation and taxation are constrained by past investments in legal and fiscal capacity. It studies the economic...