Employing a wide range of individual-level surveys, we study the extent of cultural and institutional heterogeneity within the EU and how this changed between 1980 and 2008. We present several novel empirical regularities that paint a complex picture. While Europe has experienced both systematic...

We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. We compare a rigid (law set ex-ante) legal system and a flexible one (law set after observing current technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth at...

In a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are already taken. Therefore, the...

In a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are already taken. Therefore, the...

We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. We compare a rigid (law set ex-ante) legal system and a flexible one (law set after observing current technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth at...

Many countries, especially developing ones, follow procyclical fiscal policies, namely spending goes up (taxes go down) in booms and spending goes down (taxes go up) in recessions. We provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for...