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    Glaeser, Edward L, Jose A Scheinkman, and Andrei Shleifer. 1995. “Economic Growth in a Cross-Section of Cities.” Journal of Monetary Economics 36 (1): 117-143. Abstract

    We examine the relationship between urban characteristics in 1960 and urban growth between 1960 and 1990. Income and population growth move together, and both types of growth are (l) positively related to initial schooling, (2) negatively related to initial unemployment, and (3) negatively related to the initial share of employment in manufacturing. Racial composition and segregation are uncorrelated with urban growth across all cities, but in cities with large nonwhite communities segregation is positively correlated with population growth. Government expenditures (except for sanitation) are uncorrelated with growth; government debt is positively correlated with later growth.

    Botero, Juan, Alejandro Ponce, and Andrei Shleifer. 2013. “Education, Complaints, and Accountability.” Journal of Law and Economics 56 (4): 959-996. Abstract
    Better-educated countries have better governments, an empirical regularity that holds in both dictatorships and democracies. Possible reasons for this fact are that educated people are more likely to complain about misconduct by government officials and that more frequent complaints encourage better behavior from officials. Newly assembled individual-level survey data from the World Justice Project show that, within countries, better-educated people are more likely to report official misconduct. The results are confirmed using other survey data on reporting crime and corruption. Citizens’ complaints might thus be an operative mechanism that explains the link between education and the quality of government.
    Shleifer, Andrei. 2010. “Efficient Regulation.” Regulation vs. Litigation, edited by Daniel Kessler, 27-43. NBER and University of Chicago Press. Abstract

    Regulation of economic activity is ubiquitous around the world, yet standard theories predict it should be rather uncommon. I argue that the ubiquity of regulation is explained not so much by the failure of markets, or by asymmetric information, as by the failure of courts to solve contract and tort disputes cheaply, predictably, and impartially. The approach accounts for the ubiquity of regulation, for its growth over time, as well as for the fact that contracts themselves are heavily regulated. It also makes predictions, both across activities and across jurisdictions, for the efficiency of regulation and litigation as strategies of enforcing efficient conduct.

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