Articles in English

Previous studies have treated economic crisis as causes of coup attempts but theoretical considerations suggest that coups may also cause crises. Across 200 coups in Latin America and the Caribbean be…

We study the wage effects of an expansion of for-profit preschools in Sweden, which followed after a reform in 2006 removed municipalities’ right to veto private entry. The expansion decreased prescho…

This study asks whether populism weakens civil society in a panel of 79 countries from 1970 to 2019. Greater right-wing populist representation in legislatures is associated with declines in civil-soc…

Populist parties have grown rapidly in popularity in most European countries, and are increasingly common in government coalitions. Analyzing 183 populist parties in 33 European countries from 1980 to…

We analyze provider differences in preschool using linked worker–workplace data that span 20 years and that include the full population of municipal, for-profit and non-profit preschools in Sweden. We…

We examine whether culturally transmitted time and risk preferences help explain differences in preventive health care uptake. We combine individual-level survey data from 27 European countries with c…

Using data from 31 European countries, this paper shows that the adoption of consent-based sexual assault laws reduces fertility by about 4% relative to the mean. The decline appears to be driven prim…

This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics presents seven studies of institutional change and places them in the wider literature. It is described how rules and norms…

Capital income is known to increase income inequality when measured on an annual basis, but the role of personal capital income in long-run inequality is rarely studied. Theoretically, capital in…

This paper brings metaethical beliefs into Buchanan and Tullock’s constitutional calculus. A truth-commitment parameter captures how strongly citizens moralize politics. Stronger commitment can tighte…

As universities and journals set limits on AI in research, this paper argues that the rules may reflect politics inside academia. Researchers who gain less from AI may push for restrictions to reduce…

A strong rule of law correlates positively with trust in journalists, as robust legal institutions punish deceit and fraud effectively. The study identifies quality legal institutions as crucial for c…

Newly developed data show that after successful coups, there is a 42 percent chance that a new constitution is implemented. We explore these constitutions, and that military coup plotters tend to draw…

Coups d’états tend to lead to more repression as well as economic decline. Yet, because left-wing governments are often supported by organisations with potential for mass mobilisation, overthrowing le…

The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 gave rise to an unprecedented number of emergency declarations across the world. Recent research shows that the transfer of substantial discretionary power to th…

Higher social trust weakens rule-following norms, letting civic types selectively violate overinclusive rules in harmless cases while obeying when violations cause harm. This generates flexible enforc…

Feminists have claimed that capitalism and ‘neoliberal reforms’ are associated with femicide. Employing a panel of 163 countries between 1990 and 2023, we find no significantly positive relationship b…

This paper combines individual-level data from the European Social Survey with indicators of economic, political, and social globalisation. We exploit variation in exposure to globalisation during ind…

Using data for 76 democracies since 2000, we show that populist parties are linked to weaker freedom-related institutions, especially when they align ideologically with legislative majorities. Right-w…

Hayek's ”road to serfdom" is not about big budgets, it is about case-by-case discretion replacing general rules. A formal model shows crises tempt voters toward leaders promising swift, targeted actio…

This paper extends the Aghion–Howitt growth model by adding an entrepreneurial commercialization stage and replacing known risk with ambiguity. Ambiguity shortens perceived rent horizons, curbing comm…

The study examines how an expansion of the highway network in Croatia contributed to increased tourism and reduced voter support for the country’s largest national conservative party in coastal munici…

This paper formalizes a tradeoff between experienced well-being and the refinement of wants. Drawing on Knight and Schopenhauer, it shows that pursuing higher standards raises the benchmarks against w…

Using matching methods across 117 countries, this article finds no evidence that large increases in economic globalization reduce five-year income growth for the middle class. Most effects are insigni…

This study examines how economic-political uncertainty during formative years affects adult tolerance. Using the World Uncertainty Index and European Social Survey, findings show that uncertainty, esp…

Inequality-as-externality models can justify very high top tax rates. This paper shows those results lean on abstractions that mute top-end responses. Once entrepreneurship and its spillovers enter, h…

Our use of longitudinal register data combined with a unique survey allows us to offer a more comprehensive picture of rural self-employment than in previous studies. We find that self[1]employed in r…

This paper formalizes Buchanan’s "relatively absolute absolutes" as a game where citizens choose a neutral lottery rule or costly conflict. The rule is self-enforcing in ordinary politics because defe…

We show that culturally transmitted individualism is an important determinant of working from home (WFH). Using individual-level data from the U.S. Current Population Survey (CPS) and the European Soc…