Macroeconomists have applied many versions of vector autoregression to measuring the size of the government spending multiplier. Very frequently in the literature on that multiplier, the statistical significance of results is held to an unconventionally low standard of one standard error. This...

This paper assesses how to quantitatively classify countries as conforming to the ideal of an “open access order” in the spirit of Douglass North, John Joseph Wallis, and Barry Weingast’s Violence and Social Orders. It does so by taking the harmonic mean of already existing measures of...

This paper explores the effects of fiscal capacity on the rule of law. Following the Besley and Persson (2009) model exploring complementarities between fiscal capacity and legal capacity, we test the relationship using fiscal capacity and rule of law data from the Varieties of Democracy...

This paper explores the effects of fiscal capacity on the rule of law. Following the Besley and Persson (2009) model exploring complementarities between fiscal capacity and legal capacity, we test the relationship using fiscal capacity and rule of law data from the Varieties of Democracy...

The paradigm of liberalism – the preeminence of some form of universal human rights – has taken hold in much of the developed world, with obvious exceptions. Prior to liberalism, certain subgroups in society were not accorded full moral status and were considered morally as part of the...