This article provides a succinct review of the arguments stressing the mutual relationship between institutions and economic performance, and a scholarly account of some of the most popular econometric strategies used to minimize reversed causality problems in impact estimation. Among the...

The notion of state capacity has attracted renewed interest over the last few years, in particular in the study of violent conflict. Yet, state capacity is conceived differently depending on whether the interest lies in the state's power to discourage violent conflict, in its ability to...

The notion of state capacity has attracted renewed interest over the last few years, in particular in the study of violent conflict. Yet, state capacity is conceived differently depending on whether the interest lies in the state's power to discourage violent conflict, in its ability to...

What is state capacity and how does it affect development? The concept of state capacity acquired centrality during the late seventies and eighties, sponsored by a rather compact set of scholarly works. It later permeated through several disciplines and has now earned a place within the many...

This paper analyzes periods of economic stagnation in a panel of countries. We test if stagnation episodes are predicted by institutional factors and external/internal shocks, as is implied by recent theoretical contributions, and compare the impacts of these variables with those of traditional...

Using institutional indicators describing 122 countries, we conduct an exploratory study highlighting which institutional characteristics differ across countries with different levels of income and rates of growth. We describe a country's institutions by the degree of formalization of its...