We study the impact of Russian regional governors’ rotation and their affiliation with private sector firms for the quality of investment climate in Russian regions. A theoretical model presented in the paper predicts that these factors taken together improve "endogenous" property rights under...

Episodes of economic growth that lead to reductions in poverty and inequality are relatively rare in developing countries. In this paper, we examine the institutional foundations of such growth episodes. We argue that the institutional factors that lead to accelerations in economic growth will...

We investigate how the regional institutional environment—in particular, the political environment—affects Russian new firm entry across regions, industries, firm size classes, and time. We find that entry rates in Russia are explained by natural entry rates and the institutional...

The paper aims to assess the impact of regulations (measured by the Heritage Foundation index of economic freedom) on economic growth. The method of the analysis is based on growth regressions where economic freedom is included in the set of explanatory variables, along with some other control...

Studies of the impact of local political risk on foreign direct investment inflows overlook that worldwide FDI comes in waves. Using a simple model we show that the impact of political risk on FDI inflows is likely to be weaker, the larger the worldwide amount of FDI, which may question standard...

Who benefits from economic freedom? Results from a panel of 86 countries over the 1990–2005 period suggest that overall economic freedom has a significant positive effect on subjective well-being. Its dimensions legal security and property rights, sound money, and regulation are in particular...