Purpose – During recent times, the stock market has emerged as a major financial institution of an economy. Yet, cross-country differences, in size and role of stock market, persist. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between cultural traits and the development of the...

This article investigates the missing link in the literature -- whether informal institutions, or what is known as culture, can affect the level of financial development for a country? Our hypothesis stresses that the cultural dimensions of a country can have an impact on its financial set-up....

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between state fragility and transparency. A state is deemed fragile when it falters in its ability to manage conflict and in its capacity to deliver basic functions and implement public policy. Although minimizing fragility of the...

This paper empirically assesses the relationship between culture and a free press. The results reveal that a privatized or ‘free media’ strongly influences informal institutions of a country or what is commonly known as culture. By providing unbiased and a wide variety information to the...

Previous literature generally finds that greater fiscal decentralization is associated with faster economic growth, improved government performance and stronger constraints on the Leviathan behaviour of governments. Because economic growth critically depends on the presence of good government...

Examining the economics of entrepreneurship from the perspectives of productive versus unproductive entrepreneurial behavior and the role of institutions in economic outcomes, the authors in this book seek to advance the research on institutions by providing a simple framework to analyze the...