The paper reexamines Lipset’s theory of democratization, by distinguishing the role of (economic) development from that of education, inequality, and (natural) resources. We highlight two contrasting effects of education and human capital accumulation. On the one side, education prompts...

We develop a continuous time dynamic game to provide with a benchmark theory of Arab Spring-type events. We consider a resource-dependent economy with two interacting groups, the elite vs. the citizens, and two political regimes, dictatorship vs. a freer regime. Transition to the freer regime...

The paper reexamines Lipset's theory of democratization, by distinguishing the role of (economic) development from that of education, inequality, and (natural) resources. We highlight two contrasting effects of education and human capital accumulation. On the one side, education prompts economic...

We develop a continuous time dynamic game to provide with a benchmark theory of Arab Spring-type events. We consider a resource-dependent economy with two interacting groups, the elite vs. the citizens, and two political regimes, dictatorship vs. a freer regime. Transition to the freer regime...

We develop a dynamic game to provide with a theory of Arab spring-type events. We consider two interacting groups, the elite vs the citizens, two political regimes, dictatorship vs a freer regime, the possibility to switch from the first to the second regime as a consequence of a revolution, and...

We consider a framework à la Wirl (1994) where political liberalization is the outcome of a lobbying differential game between a conservative elite and a reformist group, the former player pushing against political liberalization in opposition to the latter. In contrast to the benchmark model,...

We develop a continuous time dynamic game to provide with a benchmark theory of Arab Spring-type events. We consider a resource-dependent economy with two interacting groups, the elite vs. the citizens, and two political regimes, dictatorship vs. a freer regime. Transition to the freer regime...

The paper addresses the role of education policies for institutional change. Our paradigmatic model consists of an autocratic elite and a mass of hand-to-mouth workers. The elite has full political and economic control. First, it anticipates and can avoid revolutionary threats through income...