This paper surveys the growing empirical neo-institutional literature dealing with economic development and shows that it has essentially developed a one-dimensional perspective on institutions and their effect on economic development that has overlooked the fact that economic effects of...

This paper contrasts the determinants of entrepreneurial entry and high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveys for 42 countries over the period 1998-2005, we analyse how institutional environment and entrepreneurial characteristics affect...

There is a large literature that finds that common law countries perform better than civil law countries in various aspects of the institutional environment. The present paper extends these findings to another dimension of institutional quality - the cost of registering property. In a sample of...

This paper develops a general theory of land inheritance rules. We distinguish between two classes of rules: those that allow a testator discretion in disposing of his land (like a best-qualified rule), and those that constrain his choice (like primogeniture). The primary benefit of the latter...

This paper develops a theoretical model for parental behavior regarding land inheritance, explicitly accounting for consumption and human capital savings strategies. We distinguish two types of modeling: one with and another without strategic behavior. In the first model, we assume that children...

Do patents behave substantially like property rights in tangible assets, in that they encourage development and innovation? This article notes that historical evidence, cross-country evidence, economic experiments, and estimates of net benefits all indicate that general property rights...

Growth empirics with institutional measures is performed for 25 transition countries overthe period 1990-95. Estimation results suggest that (particularly state) institutions aresignificant for growth and, especially, foreign direct investment (FDI), the latter in turnbeing important for the...

This multilevel meta-analytic study, based on 176 studies from 36 countries, examines the impact of political characteristics on the performance of family firms when comparing them to non-family firms (k=311, N=1,598,964). Our findings support the expectation that family firm characteristics are...

Although old, the debate on whether government’s intervention in economic activities can stimulate economic growth once again rose within the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. They have passed a harsh transition process, pressed on by the intention to join the EU, which involved...