This research advances the hypothesis that natural land productivity in the past, and its e¤ect on the desirable level of cooperation in the agricultural sector, had a persistent e¤ect on the evolution of social capital, the process of industrialization and comparative economic development across the globe. Exploiting exogenous sources of variations in land productivity across a) countries; b) individuals within a country, and c) migrants of di¤erent ancestry within a country, the research establishes that lower level of land productivity in the past is associated with more intense cooperation and higher levels of contemporary social capital and development.

Backed by strong empirical results, obtained from several different specification and sensitivity analyses, this paper contends that countries with high-intellectual quotient populations produce and export more sophisticated/complex products. This result is further reinforced by the quality of democracy.

We provide empirical support and a theoretical explanation for the vicious circle of political corruption and tax evasion in which countries often fall into. We address this issue in the context of a model with two distinct groups of agents: citizens and politicians. Citizens decide the fraction of their income for which they evade taxes.Politicians decide the fraction of the public budget that they peculate. We show that multiple self-ful…lling equilibria with di¤erent levels of corruption can emerge based on the existence of strategic complementarities, indicating that corruption may corrupt. Furthermore, we …nd that standard deterrence policies cannot eliminate multiplicity. Instead, policies that impose a strong moral cost on tax evaders and corrupt politicians can lead to a unique equilibrium.JEL Classi…cation: D73; E62; H26

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This research argues that in highly unequal societies, a rent-seeking and selfmaximizing dictator may be supported by a fraction of the population, despite the absence of special benefits to these societal groups. Importantly, it is the stakes of the dictator in the economy, in the form of capital ownership, that drive the support of individuals. In highly unequal societies ruled by a capital-rich dictator endowed with the power to tax and appropriate at will, the elites will support dictatorial policies given that they can generate higher growth rates than the ones obtained under democracy. This support arises unconditionally to special benefits to the elites and despite the total absence of checks and balances on the dictator. * University of York, United Kingdom. E-mail: giacomo.deluca@york.ac.uk † University of Luxembourg, Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance.E-mail: anastasia.litina@uni.lu ‡ Belgian National Research Fund (FNRS) post-doctoral researcher at CRED, University of Namur, Belgium. E-mail: psekeris@fundp.ac.be 1 Growth-Friendly Dictatorships AbstractThis research argues that in highly unequal societies, a rent-seeking and selfmaximizing dictator may be supported by a fraction of the population, despite the absence of special benefits to these societal groups. Importantly, it is the stakes of the dictator in the economy, in the form of capital ownership, that drive the support of individuals. In highly unequal societies ruled by a capital-rich dictator endowed with the power to tax and appropriate at will, the elites will support dictatorial policies given that they can generate higher growth rates than the ones obtained under democracy. This support arises unconditionally to special benefits to the elites and despite the total absence of checks and balances on the dictator.