Constitutions, politics, and economics:: A review essay on Persson and Tabellini's The Economic Effects of Constitutions

In this essay, I review the new book by Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini, The Economic Effects of Constitutions, which investigates the policy and economic consequences of different forms of government and electoral rules. I also take advantage of this opportunity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a number of popular empirical strategies in the newly emerging field of comparative political economy.