Economic equality and growth are important policy objectives, but the relationship between the two aims is complex. This column examines how the distribution of land ownership shaped Italy’s structural transformation after WWII. A relatively egalitarian agrarian economy corresponded with higher levels of economic growth, fostering a successful entrepreneurial model with flexible networks of small and […]

Though social scientists have long questioned how religion affects economic growth, a lack of accessible data hindered their efforts. Recently, advances in computing, novel econometric techniques, and the availability of new data have enabled researchers to test how religion has influenced growth in rich and poor countries, both historically and in the present. This column […]