What are the effects of institutional subversion on small business development, fiscal policies, economic growth, and firm performance? This paper provides an empirical investigation of institutional subversion in Russia’s regions. We develop a complete account of preferential treatments to...

How far can media undermine democratic institutions and how persuasive can it be in assuring public support for dictator policies? We study this question in the context of Germany before World War II, between 1929 and 1939. First, we estimate the impact of radio signal on voting for the Nazi...

How do the media affect public support for democratic institutions in a fragile democracy? What role do they play in a dictatorial regime? We study these questions in the context of Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. During the democratic period, when the Weimar government introduced progovernment...

How do the media affect public support for democratic institutions in a fragile democracy? What role do they play in a dictatorial regime? We study these questions in the context of Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. During the democratic period, when the Weimar government introduced pro-government...

This paper reports first results from a survey of 404 middle-sized and large manufacturing firms from 40 Russian regions in April-June 2003.We examine the extent of social service and infrastructure provision by the firms and the firms assessment of the quality of public infrastructure and the...

This article reviews the recent burgeoning political economics research on nation-building. We focus on three main aspects of this body of work. First, we discuss methodological issues related to measuring nation-building outcomes and provide a synthesis of studies that employ different...

We study the nature of judicial bias in bankruptcy proceedings following the enactment of the 1998 bankruptcy law in Russia. The two main findings are as follows. First, regional political characteristics affected judicial decisions about the number and types of bankruptcy proceedings initiated...