A number of recent empirical studies have cast doubt on the “modernization theory” of democratization, which posits that increases in income are conducive to increases in democracy levels. This doubt stems mainly from the fact that while a strong positive correlation exists between income...

We update Rose and Spiegel (2010a, b) and search for simple quantitative models of macroeconomic and financial indicators of the “Great Recession” of 2008‐09. We use a cross‐country approach and examine a number of potential causes that have been found to be successful indicators of...