The Determinants of Institutional Quality. How Leaders' Perceived Threat of Losing Power Without Compensation Affects Economic Development

摘要

Since the 1950s, countries in the developing world have followed radically different paths of economic development. For example, when in the 1950s, Ghana, Cambodia, Bolivia, and South Korea were equally poor; today South Korea is 16 times as rich as Bolivia, 33 times as rich as Ghana, and 36 times as rich as Cambodia. This is puzzling considering that most researchers in fact expected convergence between developed and developing countries (Solow 1956; Baumol 1986).