We consider a model of policy choice in which appropriate policies depend on a country's own circumstances, but the presence of a successful leader generates an informational externality and results in too little "policy experimentation." Corrupt governments are reined in while honest...

We consider a model of policy choice in which appropriate policies depend on a country's own circumstances, but the presence of a successful leader generates an informational externality and results in too little 'policy experimentation.' Corrupt governments are reined in while honest...

Why do economic reforms that are proceeding successfully often run aground? A number of observers have expressed surprise that public opinion regarding the continuation of a reform process often runs directly counter to the performance of the reform itself. This is especially surprising if one...

The past two decades have witnessed many episodes of economic reform across the developing world. Although initiated with popular enthusiasm, sustaining and completing these reform packages has turned out to be much more difficult, with policymakers having to `walk the line' between success and...

We analyze whether or not the globalization of capital, `disciplines' governments and improves gov- ernance. We demonstrate that globalization a ects governance, by increasing a country's vulnerability to sudden capital ight. This increased threat of capital ight can discipline governments and...

This paper develops a dynamic framework to analyze the political sustainability of economic reforms in developing countries. First, we demonstrate that economic reforms that are proceeding successfully may run into a political impasse, with the reform’s initial success having a negative impact...

Individual leaders have been central to the transformation of political institutions, organizations and many instances of social and economic reform. Why are some leaders able to take advantage of opportunities to successfully catalyze large-scale change while others fail? In this paper we argue...

Reflecting on his experience as a central banker, Alan Blinder (1998) observed that “while I never saw a single case of a central banker succumbing to the temptation that so worried Kydland and Prescott, I often witnessed central bankers sorely tempted to deliver the policy that the markets...

Individual leaders have been central to the transformation of organizations, political institutions and many instances of social and economic reform. In this paper we take a first step towards analyzing the role of leadership to ask: when and how does a leader engineer change? We show that while...