Whether trade can achieve societal change is a contested topic and difficult to investigate. This round-up aims at summarizing recent empirical research on this topic while focusing on democracy and democratization as an important part of societal change. No robust results for change arising...

A well-known theoretical result in the contest literature is that greater heterogeneity decreases performance of contestants because of the "discouragement effect." Leveling the playing field by favoring weaker contestants through bid-caps and favorable tie-breaking rules can reduce the...