The former socialist countries of South East and Central Europe exhibit great variation in institutional quality. Unlike the sparse existing literature, I claim that the variation can be explained by the legacies of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. I identify historical legacies of the Empires, which have affected the current institutional quality of the successor states. I show empirically that the Empires' legacies are key determinants of institutional quality, and that the Habsburg successors have institutions that are more efficient in a market economy than the Ottoman successors. In contrast, I find an insignificant effect of socialism on institutional quality. Copyright 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Blackwell Publishing in its journal Kyklos.
Volume (Year): 60 (2007) Issue (Month): 4 (November) Pages: 539-558 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF