Economic freedom indicators have become quite popular recently as a useful tool to quantify the relationship between a country's institutions and its prosperity. In a recent article, Hanson (2003) criticizes these types of studies for: (i) failing to adequately distinguish between different...

In the quarter century since the publication of Mancur Olson's Rise and Decline of Nations, a large literature has evolved testing the central hypothesis regarding Olson's thesis on institutional sclerosis. These tests have taken the form of both econometric regression analysis involving a...