We study experimentally the protection of property in five widely distinct countries - Austria, Mexico, Mongolia, South Korea and the United States. Our main results are that the security of property varies with experimental institutions, and that our subject pools exhibit significantly...

We investigate the relationship between political attitudes and prosociality in a survey of a representative sample of the U.S. population during the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that an experimental measure of prosociality correlates positively with adherence to protective...

We propose and test empirically a theory describing the endogenous formation and persistence of mega-states, using China as an example. We suggest that the relative timing of the emergence of agricultural societies, and their distance from each other, set off a race between their autochthonous...

We use two sets of cross-country growth regression models to investigate the determinants of the growth rates in African countries between 1960 and 2000. Both sets of models contradict conclusions based on global samples: within Africa, we find greater coastal population and distance from the...

Are the Neolithic revolution's effects still impacting incomes across the world today? I find strong support for this proposition using new, country-specific estimates of the timing of agricultural transition. While support with my data is slightly weaker than with the coarser data of Hibbs and...