Societies in Western civilisation enforce their rules through formal institutions such as secularism (SES), whereas in less developed civilisations often rely on informal institutions such as religion (RES). The present paper attempts to explain the determinants of societies’ choice between...

We document a change in the character and quality of Turkish economic growth with a turning point around 2007 and link this change to the reversal in the nature of economic institutions, which eat underwent a series of growth-enhancing reforms following Turkey's financial crisis in 2001, but...

The decrease in the rule of law and in control of corruption in several EU countries is a threat to the cohesion in the EU. Brexit has reinforced the centrifugal forces in the EU. To counter this threat the EU needs to engage in unpopular measures as they infringe on the Member States'...

This paper studies whether institutions matter for economic performance. For this aim, we first construct a simple framework illustrating how to examine the interaction between institutions and economic performance from a different point of view. Then, using this framework, we introduce an...

The economic impact of an institutional transplant depends on the underlying cultural envi-ronment of the receiving country. This paper provides the first evidence that the positive effect of importing good institutions cancels out when the receiving territories are characterized by cultural...