Scholars have paid increasing attention to democratic backsliding, yet efforts to explain this
phenomenon remain inchoate. This article seeks to place the study of democratic …

Foreign aid is one of the most important policy tools that rich countries use to help poor
countries improve population well-being and facilitate economic and institutional …

Do elites capture foreign aid? This paper documents that aid disbursements to highly aid-
dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial …

Considering the mounting criticisms concerning Chinese aid practices, the present paper
investigates whether Chinese aid projects fuel local-level corruption in Africa. To this end …

Countries solemnly intone their commitment to human rights, and they ratify endless
international treaties and conventions designed to signal that commitment. At the same time …

" Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest
barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being …

The current literature contains mixed results regarding the impact of corruption on
entrepreneurship and economic growth. In this paper, we examine a much larger set of …

An informed and excoriating attack on the tragic waste, futility, and hubris of the West's
efforts to date to improve the lot of the so-called developing world, with constructive …

In this introductory essay to the special issue, we introduce a new dataset of foreign
assistance, AidData, that covers more bilateral and multilateral donors and more types of aid …

We show that geography, through its impact on history, can have important effects on
economic development today. The analysis focuses on the historic interaction between …