We revisit the relationship between informal institutions and income levels. The empirical literature on institutions finds that indices of "informal institutions" such as trust, respect, respect, self-determination, and obedience are more important than "formal institutions" such as...

This paper discusses one approach to using writing assignments in an undergraduate public economics to get students actively involved in doing public choice. Our goal is to provide an overview of the course and its writing assignments with an emphasis on how the scaffolding of assignments helps...