aftermath of major wars. Motivated by this fact, we offer a theory of political transitions which focuses on the impact of …, conditionally on satisfactory performance as soldiers. When the elite cannot credibly commit to provide an incentive … through the extension of franchise. This is because democracy always implements a highly redistributive fiscal policy, which …

sector, and show that in a feudal society (dominated by landed elites) productivity-enhancing public investments like the …

democracy disappears once including country fixed effects. This paper tests the hypothesis that the effect of income on … democracy might differ systematically across countries. A replication of the estimation in a less restrictive empirical … framework provides evidence for significant but heterogeneous effects of income on democracy for former colonies and non …

of democracy in his country during his tenure. This effect is shown to be independent from the leader's education level …, as well as from his profession. Moreover, it is mainly driven by countries with a poor initial level of democracy. These … the sending countries, namely the emergence of the elites. …

that a jus sanguinis origin is a factor of resistance to change, that a high degree of democracy promotes the adoption of …

problem; a strong military may not simply work as an agent of the elite but may turn against them in order to create a regime … more important consequence of the presence of a strong military is that once transition to democracy takes place, the …, repression becomes more valuable to the elite, but also more expensive to maintain because of the more severe political moral …

public schooling. We develop a theory which integrates private education and fertility decisions with voting on public … theory are consistent with state-level and micro data from the United States as well as cross-country evidence from the PISA …

evaluate separately the impact of political institutions linked to democracy and suffrage and of those institutions more …

Using a new set of micro evidence from an original survey of 28 transition countries, we show that democracy increases … reformist parties in the former socialist block lies in a deepening of democracy. …