The quality of government
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TLDR
The authors investigated empirically the determinants of the quality of governments in a large cross-section of countries and found that countries that are poor, close to the equator, ethnolinguistically heterogeneous, use French or socialist laws, or have high proportions of Catholics or Muslims exhibit inferior government performance.Abstract:
We investigate empirically the determinants of the quality of governments in a large cross-section of countries. We assess government performance using measures of government intervention, public sector efficiency, public good provision, size of government, and political freedom. We find that countries that are poor, close to the equator, ethnolinguistically heterogeneous, use French or socialist laws, or have high proportions of Catholics or Muslims exhibit inferior government performance. We also find that the larger governments tend to be the better performing ones. The importance of (reasonably) exogenous historical factors in explaining the variation in government performance across countries sheds light on the economic, political, and cultural theories of institutions.read more
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Corporate Ownership Around the World
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The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation
TL;DR: Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson as discussed by the authors used estimates of potential European settler mortality as an instrument for institutional variation in former European colonies today, and they followed the lead of Curtin who compiled data on the death rates faced by European soldiers in various overseas postings.
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Investor Protection and Corporate Governance
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the legal approach is a more fruitful way to understand corporate governance and its reform than the conventional distinction between bank-centered and market-centered financial systems, and discuss the possible origins of these differences, summarize their consequences, and assess potential strategies of corporate governance reform.
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Financial Intermediation and Growth: Causality and Causes
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References
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Book
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Book
Foundations of Social Theory
TL;DR: In this article, a new approach to describing both stability and change in social systems by linking the behavior of individuals to organizational behavior is proposed. But the approach is not suitable for large-scale systems.
Posted Content
Law and Finance
Rafael La Porta,Rafael La Porta,Florencio Lopez de Silanes,Florencio Lopez de Silanes,Andrei Shleifer,Andrei Shleifer,Robert W. Vishny,Robert W. Vishny +7 more
TL;DR: This paper examined legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries and found that common law countries generally have the best, and French civil law countries the worst, legal protections of investors.
BookDOI
Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy
TL;DR: Putnam et al. as discussed by the authors analyzed the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and health services, revealing patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity.