Several cross-country studies have found that corruption is detrimental to economic growth, but the findings are not universally robust. We utilize the economic freedom index to examine if corruption can facilitate growth by allowing entrepreneurs to avoid inefficient policies and regulations...

The secret ballot was designed to eliminate the incentive for candidates to purchase votes through direct vote buying. When voters have private information on their candidate preferences, incumbent candidates will generally be less efficient in purchasing votes than their challengers. Incumbent...

The weak government argument claims that fractionalized governments (coalition or minority governments) have more difficulty increasing their tax revenues or decreasing their spending than majority governments. This implies that weaker governments are associated with higher government deficits....

Previous studies of the U.S. Constitutional Convention have relied on votes recorded for the state blocs or a relatively small number of delegate votes. We construct a new data set covering delegate votes on over 600 substantive roll calls, and use the data in several ways. First, we estimate a...

We examine a balanced panel of globalization indices for 129 countries over the years 1991-2010. We report evidence of cross-country sigma convergence in the overall globalization index. Sigma convergence also holds for each of the economic, political, and social globalization indices, as well...

Assuming strict two-party competition, policy balancing models of the US senate imply that senators from the same state will often be from opposite parties and have great ideological divergence. We analyze the effect of independent candidates on these implications. Our theoretical model implies...

The measurement of economic freedom is discussed. One particular set of freedom indi-ces developed by Heritage Foundation is detailed, including how the indices are constructed and potential problems in the methodological design. Comparisons are made for the different levels of freedom...

Financial liberalization indicators are tested for sigma convergence and divergence. Sigma convergence requires a significant reduction in the dispersion across nations over time whereas sigma divergence entails a significant increase in dispersion. Using the standard deviation and a linear...

type="main" <title type="main">Objectives</title> <p>The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution repealing national prohibition is the only amendment ratified by state conventions rather than state legislatures. The referenda held to select delegates for these conventions offer a promising source of data for identifying...</p>