State Building in Latin America diverges from existing scholarship in developing
explanations both for why state-building efforts in the region emerged and for their success …

This paper takes stock of recent advancements in the literature on state capacity and
connects them to the study of inclusive development. Specifically, four particular lines of …

States over the past 500 years have become the dominant institutions throughout the world,
exercising vast and varied authority over the economic well-being, health, welfare, and very …

A history of why great powers decline, from Spain to the United States The extent and
irreversibility of US decline is becoming ever more obvious as America loses war after war …

Abstract Using the World Heritage List as a case study, this article shows how cultural and
natural wealth is constructed through internal claims and external validation. I analyze the …

Patrimonialism, until fairly recently, seemed an archaic social form, largely replaced by
bureaucratic rationalism. That confident view of modernity, in the histories that Max Weber …

We exploit the discontinuity in the integration into the colonial court district of Real Audiencia
in Upper Peru to estimate how colonial institutions have impacted local development across …

Scholars have devoted major attention to the legacies of colonialism. The focal points of
many of these studies include the long-term implications of colonial rule, including economic …

The notion that legal institutions matter greatly for long-term growth and development has
attracted substantial scholarly attention (Posner 1998; Easterly and Levine 2003; Acemoglu …

On October 12, 1492, Columbus' arrival in the New World set in motion an earthquake in
world history whose effects were shattering. Within a few years, this event would come to …