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This paper investigates if past institutional, economic, political, social, and cultural features (i.e legal origins on law and regulations and colonial legacies) interact in shaping the current institutional performances on deforestation in 116 developed and developing countries. A two step approach is implemented. First, we investigate relations between colonial legacies-legal origins and current institutional performances. We find that common law countries and previous British colonies have better institutions that French civil law and other past colonized countries. Second, we provide two econometrics procedures to capture some institutional persistences on deforestation which allow to estimate current institutional effects on deforestation conditioned to historical variables. In a first time, we run our deforestation model on different samples (under historical variables) and in a second time, interactive variables are introduced. We find that (i) French civil law countries deforest less than common law ones; (ii) less corruption and more secured property rights decrease deforestation in common law countries; (iii) better rules of law reduce deforestation but this feature is more likely in previous British colonies or non colonized countries. Finally, this paper shows that current institutional performances are important factors in the process of deforestation and that these factors are conditioned to past influences.

This paper investigates if past institutional, economic, political, social, and cultural features (i.e legal origins on law and regulations and colonial legacies) interact in shaping the current institutional performances on deforestation in 116 developed and developing countries. A two step approach is implemented. First, we investigate relations between colonial legacies-legal origins and current institutional performances. We find that common law countries and previous British colonies have better institutions that French civil law and other past colonized countries. Second, we provide two econometrics procedures to capture some institutional persistences on deforestation which allow to estimate current institutional effects on deforestation conditioned to historical variables. In a first time, we run our deforestation model on different samples (under historical variables) and in a second time, interactive variables are introduced. We find that (i) French civil law countries deforest less than common law ones; (ii) less corruption and more secured property rights decrease deforestation in common law countries; (iii) better rules of law reduce deforestation but this feature is more likely in previous British colonies or non colonized countries. Finally, this paper shows that current institutional performances are important factors in the process of deforestation and that these factors are conditioned to past influences.

Clientele networks are differently structured across nations, depending on the political institutional setup and the configuration of political and social forces. The political institutional setup, which is cross-nationally different, determines where clientele networks are formed, how extensive they are and how long they can persist. The configuration of political and social forces, which varies over time, defines who takes the lead in clientele networks and how effective they are for producing policy effects. A comparison of Korean and Japanese clientelism suggests that the Korean case represents a form of national-level, defensive, non-cumulative and high political-risk clientelism, while the Japanese case illustrates a form of local-level, cumulative and low political-risk clientelism. Korean clientelism is not a copy of the Japanese variant. Based on this analysis, the author suggests that not every social organisation is functional for democratic governance. He also points out that the gradual process of disintegrating clientele networks is on the move. Adapted from the source document.

Attention is called to a little explored scarce resource, termed 'economic competence', which combines features of human capital and bounded rationality, and causes a singularity in resource-allocation in society. The performance of each economy is shown to strongly depend on how this resource is allocated, which in turn strongly depends upon the economy's institutions ('rules of the game'). Two stylized institutional variants of market selection and one of government selection are compared for their short-term and long-term effects upon the output and growth of a perfect team economy. The results are exemplified by throwing new light on the social value of financial markets and the limitations of industrial policies.