The Economic Effects of Constitutions. By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. 320p. $35.00.

Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini have produced the most ambitious study yet that attempts to identify and estimate the effects of constitutional design on economic outcomes. They draw on data from more than 80 countries and control for demographic, historical, regional, and economic characteristics. The purpose is to determine whether the shape of political institutions has measurable impact on economic policies (e.g., fiscal balance, social welfare spending), on government performance (e.g., corruption indices, protection of property rights), and on direct measures of economic performance (e.g., productivity of capital and labor). The political institutions that draw the most attention are constitutional regime type and the method of electing legislators.