This monograph is part of a larger investigation of the political economy of institutional reform in Latin America undertaken by the Latin American Research Network. It examines some hypotheses about what can be done to improve the chances for successful institutional change. It draws on the...

Abstract: This paper presents a new data set on electoral systems and outlines its potential uses in further research exploring the connections between electoral systems and economic outcomes. The data set provides indicators of the degree to which individual politicians can further their...

In this paper we present a conceptual framework linking cultural heterogeneity to inter-group conflict. When conflict is about control of public goods, more heterogeneous groups are expected to fight more with each other. In contrast, when conflict is about rival goods, more similar groups are...

We investigate the determinants of the fertility decline in Europe from 1830 to 1970 using a newly constructed dataset of linguistic distances between European regions. We find that the fertility decline resulted from a gradual diffusion of new fertility behavior from French-speaking regions to...

We develop a theory of interstate conflict in which the degree of genealogical relatedness between populations has a positive effect on their conflict propensities because more closely related populations, on average, tend to interact more and develop more disputes over sets of common issues. We...