Motivated by a novel stylized fact -- countries with isolated capital cities display worse quality of governance -- we … ways: broader power sharing (associated with better governance) means that any rents have to be shared more broadly, hence … capital city allows the elite to appropriate a larger share of output, so the costs of better governance for the elite, in …

Can international migration promote better institutions at home by raising the demand for political accountability? In … order to examine this question, we designed a behavioral measure of the population’s desire for better governance. A … countries with better governance, especially return migrants. …

We model the emergence of formal insurance institutions as equilibria under limited contract enforceability where … to exist. It also predicts where formal insurance is likely to flourish: insurance groups that hold savings become more … Ethiopian funeral insurance groups and their members to motivate and test our model. Those which hold savings and collect …

international institutions. The provisions and the practice of international arbitration are reviewed, and a general equilibrium …

adaptation.A major theme of the paper is the role of economic institutions in growth and in the penultimate section, the links …