It has been argued that procedural formalism undermines economic efficiency by fostering rent-seeking and corruption. We challenge this view by arguing that a number of judicial procedures foster economic growth by increasing the predictability of court decisions, which leads to more...

This paper studies correlates and determinants of direct democracy institutions (DDIs), such as referendums and initiatives, based on the premise that constitutions themselves are endogenous. Our sample covers as many as 132 countries from 1950 to 2006. We find that the likelihood that a country...

An independent judiciary has often been hailed as one of the most important aspects of the rule of law. Securing judicial independence (JI) via explicit constitutional rules seems straightforward and there is evidence that de jure and de facto JI are linked, at least in the long term. However,...

A high degree of de facto judicial independence (JI) functions as a crucial precondition of governments to credibly commit to legislative decisions, such as respecting private property rights. Thus, de facto JI should improve the allocative efficiency and may therefore contribute positively to...

We study changes in the form of government as an example of endogenously determined constitutions. For a sample of 202 countries over the period 1950–2006, we find that most changes are relatively small and roughly equally likely to be either in the direction of more parliamentarian or more...

Judicial Independence (JI) as factually implemented varies considerably between countries. Since de iure JI is an imperfect predictor of de facto JI, a number of variables that might determine the factual level of judicial independence is theoretically discussed and empirically tested. A...