During the 1960s Italy reformed its educational system in several important respects. The reform was expected to reduce class inequality in university attendence by raising the odds that working class youth would do so. We find that the liberalization of access to the maturita failed to increase...

The first part of this paper briefly examines the merits of neo-classical arguments regarding the causes of the recent upsurge in Greek unemployment. It shows that the view according to which high unemployment in Greece is caused by high waged rests on a weak empirical foundation. Moreover, by...

Alexander Gerschenkron explained variations in banking structures in 19th century Europe -- the fact that some countries like Germany and italy had universal banks, whereas others, like Britain, France, or the United States, has specialized banks -- by the timing of industrialization. I argue,...

Presidentialism has been long defined as a regime type based on the principle of separation of power. I will start by adopting a restricted definition of presidentialism and advancing a typology of democratic regimes, just to thereafter apply it to the two largest South American countries:...

Putnam's civil society is the idea that good government performance aas well as economic development is a product of 'civic community', i.e. the networks of trust, reciprocity, and habits of co-operation that arise in the associational micro-spheres of civil society such as the soccer club, the...

Even if a democracy were more likely to pursue free trade than an autocracy, the simultaneous spread of democracy in the workld would not necessarily yield a reduction in protection, but might in fact cause an increase. The reason for this paradoxical outcome is the fact that democratic...

The paper raises the question of whether democracies are more likely to pursue free trade than nondemocracies. The paper argues that democratization in response to a surge in political contestation is likely to cause an increase in protection in a nondemocracy, but a reduction in a democracy....

The new social movements, and environmentalism among them, were explained as forms of "new politics", rising from the spread of postmaterialist values and lifestyles among the new middle classes. Yet, an analysis of empirical data and findings shows that Postmaterialism and the "new politics"...

This article argues that the Corporatist Sisyphus is headed back up the hill, goaded as before by an architectonic national state. Moreover, he is just about on time. If previous speculation about a twenty to twenty-five year cycle was correct and if one traces their last downturn to the First...