Since accurate prediction ultimately determines the usefulness of theory, our paper gives the reader a taste of some predictions derived from economic theory and some empirical successes and failures. We provide only a taste, because there are a great many economic models relevant to...

Estimates of democracy's effect on the public sector are obtained from comparisons of 142 countries over the years 1960-90. Based on three tenets of voting theory--that voting mutes policy preference intensity, political power is equally distributed in democracies, and the form of voting...

The 2014 John Bates Clark Medal of the American Economic Association was awarded to Matthew Gentzkow of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The citation recognized Matt's "fundamental contributions to our understanding of the economic forces driving the creation of media...

In developing countries, informal firms account for up to half of economic activity. They provide livelihood for billions of people. Yet their role in economic development remains controversial with some viewing informality as pent-up potential and others viewing informality as a parasitic...

During the 1990s, Russia underwent an extraordinary transformation from a communist dictatorship to a multi-party democracy, from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, and from a belligerent adversary of the West to a cooperative partner. Yet a consensus in the US circa 2000 viewed...

The debate over market socialism has ignored the importance of the assumptions about the objectives of politicians in determining resource allocation. Theory and evidence suggest that totalitarian socialism does not lead to efficient resource allocation because dictators do not maximize social...