This paper examines the state and evolution of the rule of law in Mozambique, focusing on key dimensions such as voice and political participation, judicial independence and accessibility, corruption, access to basic services, personal security, and property rights. Drawing on Afrobarometer...

In July 2024, the European Union (EU) and the Serbian government signed a strategic raw materials partnership. For the EU, this cooperation represents an important step towards diversifying its supply chains and strengthening economic partnerships in its neighbourhood. Serbian President...

Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory since 2014 has forced its government to implement emergency measures that challenge legal order. This paper examines how citizens' exposure to these security responses shapes their perceptions of the rule of law. Using proximity to war...

On 24 March 2024, presidential elections were held in Senegal, with opposition politician Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, who was 43 at the time, emerging as the winner. On 2 April 2024, he was sworn in as the fifth President of the Republic of Senegal. This event may mark a turning point in the...

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of modern academic life. It is not only implied by basic liberal principles but also contributes to scientific progress and economic growth. It is therefore important to better understand what affects how free scholarly pursuits are, and to that end, we ask...

The Russian war of aggression has deepened relations between the EU and Ukraine. This can be seen, above all, in Ukraine’s EU candidate status. Despite the war, Ukraine continues to pursue many reforms, even if their pace has slowed since February 2022. The strong concentration of power in the...

We computationally reproduce the central findings in Mehmood (2022), which studied the effect of a 2010 reform in Pakistan replacing the presidential appointment of high-court judges with peer appointments. Mehmood leveraged judicial records interpreted and coded by lawyers in Pakistan at the...

There is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how institutions change. This paper provides a...

How do mechanisms that enforce cooperation emerge in a society where none are available and agents are endowed with just raw power that allows a more powerful agent to expropriate a less powerful one? We study a model where expropriation is costly and agents can choose whether to engage in...

Civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) face mounting challenges, especially in authoritarian states, where they encounter closures, persecution and smear campaigns. Consequently, their crucial work in advancing human rights, good governance and inclusive...

We investigate the link between the rule of law and equity returns in post-transitional economies over the period January 2010-December 2020 by using panel data regressions. By applying several rule- of-law proxies for national legal frameworks and justice system quality as proxies for the...

Kazakhstan, with its open borders with CIS nations and significant migration flows, emerges as a key origin, transit, and destination point in human trafficking. While acknowledging Kazakhstan's modest progress in combating human trafficking, this study aims to develop comprehensive proposals...

Kazakhstan, with its open borders with CIS nations and significant migration flows, emerges as a key origin, transit, and destination point in human trafficking. While acknowledging Kazakhstan’s modest progress in combating human trafficking, this study aims to develop comprehensive proposals...

Placing constraints on elected officials is thought to bind their hands and render government policies credible. In turn, credible policies attract investment because investors can extend their policy and regulatory time horizons. Yet, a scholarship on LMICs suggests that too many constraints on...

This paper examines the state and evolution of the rule of law in Mozambique, focusing on key dimensions such as voice and political participation, judicial independence and accessibility, corruption, access to basic services, personal security, and property rights. Drawing on Afrobarometer...

In July 2024, the European Union (EU) and the Serbian government signed a strategic raw materials partnership. For the EU, this cooperation represents an important step towards diversifying its supply chains and strengthening economic partnerships in its neighbourhood. Serbian President...

This Perspective outlines the avenues, and potential obstacles, that may be encountered when a foreign investor challenges a state's invocation of national security interests in an international arbitration setting. This Perspective additionally considers the implications that increasingly...

Turkey is at risk of descending into autocracy. That risk persists even though the resistance put up by the opposition Republican People’s Party following the arrest of Mayor of İstanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu has saved the party - at least for now - from being placed under a trustee and the...

Much political conflict in the world revolves around the issue of how much freedom to accord people. Liberal democracies are characterized by, e.g., the rule of law and a strong protection of civil rights, giving individuals a great deal of legally guaranteed freedom to lead their lives as they...

This article examines the effect of institutional quality on the credit growth of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper uses a panel dataset of 131 MFIs across 31 SSA countries spanning 2004-2018 and applies the Arellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond two-step Generalized...

A growing number of studies have investigated organisational-level and sectorial-level determinants of corporate sustainability practice (hereinafter referred to as CSP) such as Board attributes, audit committee meetings, shareholders' activism, ownership structure and sustainability-linked...

While the short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods are well understood, we know little about the effect of the pandemic for longer-term outcomes such as corruption. We look at the historical data on political and economic crises to assess what we can learn from the...

On 24 March 2024, presidential elections were held in Senegal, with opposition politician Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, who was 43 at the time, emerging as the winner. On 2 April 2024, he was sworn in as the fifth President of the Republic of Senegal. This event may mark a turning point in the...

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of modern academic life. It is not only implied by basic liberal principles but also contributes to scientific progress and economic growth. It is therefore important to better understand what affects how free scholarly pursuits are, and to that end, we ask...

There is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how institutions change. This paper provides a...

We computationally reproduce the central findings in Mehmood (2022), which studied the effect of a 2010 reform in Pakistan replacing the presidential appointment of high-court judges with peer appointments. Mehmood leveraged judicial records interpreted and coded by lawyers in Pakistan at the...

How do mechanisms that enforce cooperation emerge in a society where none are available and agents are endowed with just raw power that allows a more powerful agent to expropriate a less powerful one? We study a model where expropriation is costly and agents can choose whether to engage in...

Dieser Beitrag erläutert die Forschungsbeiträge, für die Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson und James A. Robinson im Jahr 2024 mit dem Nobel-Gedächtnispreis für Wirtschaftswissenschaften ausgezeichnet wurden. Gewürdigt werden erstens ihre empirischen Untersuchungen zur Unterscheidung zwischen...

The Russian war of aggression has deepened relations between the EU and Ukraine. This can be seen, above all, in Ukraine's EU candidate status. Despite the war, Ukraine continues to pursue many reforms, even if their pace has slowed since February 2022. The strong concentration of power in the...

This report aims to synthesise civil society's views on national trends in fundamental rights and the rule of law, drawing on the EESC Fundamental Rights and Rule of Law (FRRL) Group's first cycle of country visits. Covering the 27 EU Member States visited by the FRRL Group between 2018 and...

This report aims to synthesise civil society's views on national trends in fundamental rights and the rule of law, drawing on the EESC Fundamental Rights and Rule of Law (FRRL) Group's first cycle of country visits. Covering the 27 EU Member States visited by the FRRL Group between 2018 and...

Three EESC members took part in the visit to Moldova. The delegation met with several representatives of civil society, more specifically civil society organisations (CSOs), the social partners, the media and the legal professions. The aim of this report is to faithfully reflect and reproduce...