This article introduces a novel database that measures governments’ compliance with national constitutions. It combines information on de jure constitutional rules with data on their de facto implementation. The individual compliance indicators can be grouped into four categories that we...

While research in constitutional economics has made important progress in recent decades, the factors determining whether a constitution is complied with have only received scant attention. We contribute to that narrow literature by studying how personal traits of political leaders are...

Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might,...

Recently, several Muslim countries have ratified new constitutions. In this paper, we ask two questions: first, whether Muslim influence has a discernible impact on the content of such constitutions and, second, whether it has an impact on constitutional reality. More precisely, we are...

We bring attention to a previously overlooked determinant of de jure-de facto constitutional gaps: a polity's transition to a nation-state. We argue that nation-statehood, predicated on the formation of a strong sense of national identity, lowers the government's incentive to violate...