Demonstrates the importance of governance and social institutions to economic performance

Conventional wisdom warns that unaccountable political and business agents can enrich a few at the expense of many. But logically extending this wisdom implies that associated principals – voters, consumers, shareholders – will favor themselves over the greater good when ‘rules of the game’ instead create too much accountability. Democratic Governance and Economic Performance rigorously develops this hypothesis, and finds statistical evidence and case study illustrations that democratic institutions at various governance levels (e.g., federal, state, corporation) have facilitated opportunistic gains for electoral, consumer, and shareholder principals. To be sure, this conclusion does not dismiss the potential for democratic governance to productively reduce agency costs. Rather, it suggests that policy makers, lawyers, and managers can improve governance by weighing the agency benefits of increased accountability against the distributional costs of favoring principal stakeholders over more general economic opportunities. Carefully considering the fundamentals that give rise to this tradeoff should interest students and scholars working at the intersection of social science and the law, and can help professionals improve their own performance in policy, legal, and business settings.

A theoretical and empirical examination of why political institutions and organizations matter in economic growth.

"In evaluating democratic development, the study focuses particularly on the condition of parties and party systems. In relation to economic governance, the idea of a developmental state provides a template against which the practices of individual states are evaluated.".

An exploration of the links between development and governance- that is, between development and accountability (including institutional pluralism and participation) ; openness (including problems such as corruption that result at least partly from lack of openness) ; and predictability, or the rule of law.

A notable group of social scientists explore the political economy of good governance and how it relates to performance management, the influence of political parties, education and health issues in developing countries, the economic performance of transition economies, and the effects of climate on poverty.

Examines the political dimensions of economic policy making in the 1970s and 1980s.