Resource-based theory focuses on how economic value is created and sustained, providing the theoretical underpinnings for explaining and predicting sustainable competitive advantage. An implicit assumption of resource-based theory is that the firm’s property rights to such resources are secure. However, where property rights to potentially value-creating resources are not fully secure, as in bu...

The growth of nations is one of the most important topics of our times. Economic growth not only poses an intellectual puzzle that occupies economists’ thinking and politicians’ agendas but also affects the lives of billions of people around the world. In The Mystery of Economic Growth, Elhanan Helpman tells us the tale of economic growth in a vivid and intellectually stimulating way. He organi...

By facilitating mutually beneficial transactions in the absence of perfect legal institutions, trust is a crucial ingredient for economic development. We focus on the conceptual connections between imperfect legal institutions, uncertainty and vulnerability, and their consequences on trust, with the goal of understanding the role for a social safety net in economic development. We study a model...

New institutionalism has emerged as one of the most prominent research agendas in the field of comparative politics, political economy, and public policy. This article examines the role of institutional variation in political/economic regimes in shaping tax burdens in industrialized democracies. An institutionalist model for tax policy variation is tested across the Organization for Economic Co...

The empirical literature on economic growth agrees that institutions and governance are important determinants of long-run economic growth rates. As a stylized fact, this literature points to a strong correlation between the level of GDP per capita and the general development level of institutions and governance. However, the growth rate of GDP per capita itself, as well as other indicators tha...