This paper is the keynote speech delivered by Professor William Baumol at the First World Congress of Environmental Economists that was held in Venice on June 25-27, 1998. It analyses the situation of the environment under different economic regimes: the feudal society, Marxism and capitalism....

Does democracy promote economic development? This paper reviews recent attempts to address this question that exploited within-country variation. It shows that the answer is largely positive, but also depends on the details of democratic reforms. First, the sequence of economic vs political...