What is the relationship between state capacity, national identity, and economic development? This paper argues that increases in state capacity can lower the collective action costs associated with political and economic exchange by encouraging the formation of a common identity. This...

Law and finance theory emphasizes the negative consequences of civil law on financial and, subsequently, economic development. Before the Revolution, French territory was strictly divided according to the legal regime. Since the Middle-Ages, the southern part of France was under Justinian civil...

We examine the long-term links between state capacity and economic performance. Our database is novel and spans 11 countries and 4 centuries in Europe, the birthplace of modern economic growth. A dynamic simultaneous equation panel model indicates that the performance effects of states with...

This paper presents an index of institutionalized social technologies covering its two main dimensions namely Risk reducing technologies and Anti Rent seeking technologies and in turn covers several social, institutional, political and economic aspects. Specifically it attempted to classify and...

This paper compares more direct measures of the institutional environment with both the instability proxies used by Barro (1991) and the Gastil indices, by comparing their effects both on growth and private investment. The results provide substantial support for the position that the...

The role of institutions in promoting economic growth and development has generated considerable interest among researchers and practitioners in recent years. This paper explores the role of state institutions in promoting growth using a GMM econometric model. Specifically it attempted to test...

This working paper aims to point out the ideas defended by the Spaniard Juan de Mariana in the early XVII century in his book “De Rege et Regis Institutione” and in his monetary treatise “De Monetae Mutatione”. Juan de Mariana not only summarized the ideas of the Spanish scholastics in...

This working paper aims to point out the ideas defended by the Spaniard Juan de Mariana in the early XVII century in his book “De Rege et Regis Institutione” and in his monetary treatise “De Monetae Mutatione”. Juan de Mariana not only summarized the ideas of the Spanish scholastics in...

We present and test empirically a new theory of property and contract rights. Any incentive an autocrat has to respect such rights comes from his interest in future tax collections and national income and increases with his planning horizon. We find a compelling empirical relationship between...