Theories of the economic evolution of societies and their diversity are critically examined, paying particular attention to the evolution of hunter-gatherer societies. An interdisciplinary approach drawing on anthropology and economics is adopted. Currently, three main stereotypes of the nature...

China has been growing at high rates during the previous three decades. The current process of rebalancing from an investment- and manufacturing-led growth model towards a consumption- and service-led model is associated with decreasing growth rates. We show that China's current state of...

Long-run development (in income) causes a large fall in the share of agriculture commonly known as the agricultural transition. We confirm that this conventional wisdom is strongly supported by the data. Long-run development (in income) also causes a large increase in democracy known as the...

In the past decade, the World Bank has promoted improving business environments as a key strategy for development, which has led to a significant amount of investment in collecting firm-level investment climate surveys across countries. What lessons have emerged from the papers using these new...

Long-run development (in income) causes a large fall in the share of agriculture commonly known as the agricultural transition. We confirm that this conventional wisdom is strongly supported by the data. Long-run development (in income) also causes a large increase in democracy known as the...

This study investigates the long-term causal effects of U.S. bombing missions during the Vietnam War on later economic development in Laos. Following an instrumental variables approach, we use the distance between the centroid of village-level administrative boundaries and heavily bombed...

China has been growing at high rates during the previous three decades. The current process of rebalancing from an investment- and manufacturing-led growth model towards a consumption- and service-led model is associated with decreasing growth rates. We show that China's current state of...

Differences in the quality of institutions may explain differences in per capita income. Yet, we know relatively little on how institutions evolve. This paper contributes to such knowledge by testing for convergence in legal, bureaucratic and administrative institutional quality. Using...

The increasing realisation that governance quality is a fundamental element of long-run development has led to its consideration as a desirable development goal in its own right. To contribute to such a process, this article provides a framework to set, measure and monitor governance goals in...