In 1800, the per capita income of the United States was twice that of Mexico and roughly the same as Brazil’s. By 1913, it was four times greater than Mexico’s and seven times greater than Brazil’s. This volume seeks to explain the nineteenth-century lag in Latin American economic...

For the most part, Brazil's forests were not harvested, but annihilated, and relatively little was extracted for the benefit of Brazilians, a tragedy perhaps worse than deforestation alone. Fruitless Trees aims to make sense of what at first glance appears to be the senseless destruction of...

Why have anti-corruption efforts often failed? Current thinking on corruption has largely overlooked the profound implications of its contested nature, which paradoxically makes it an effective yet highly dysfunctional 'tool of government.' As a tool of government, it helps execute policies and...