Particular sets of institutions, once they become established in a society, have a strong tendency to persist. In this paper I argue that understanding how elites form and reproduce is key to understanding the persistence of institutions over time. I illustrate this idea with a simple political...

My research suggests that world inequality is explained by the incidence of extractive and inclusive institutions. But why do some countries have extractive institutions? I distinguish between two main reasons; first, power relations; second, the "normative order." Normative orders provide...

This paper proposes a new framework to model institutions and institutional change. It shows how moral agents, who strive to cooperate with others, can form institutions that facilitate cooperation. The framework makes it possible to model informal as well as formal institutions as games played...