Entrepreneurship requires energy and creativity as well as business acumen. Some factors that contribute to … entrepreneurship may decline with age, but business skills increase with experience in high level positions. Having too many older … workers in society slows entrepreneurship. Older workers do not possess the advantages of youth, but more significant is that …

We exploit differences in the mortality rates faced by European colonialists to estimate the effect of institutions on … different associated institutions. The choice of colonization strategy was, at least in part, determined by whether Europeans … likely to set up worse (extractive) institutions. These early institutions persisted to the present. We document evidence …