Essays on Institutions and Institutional Change

Sammanfattning: This thesis consists of three essays discussing institutional change and its effects. It distinguishes between economic and political institutions, and highlights the need for broader empirical efforts that
consider interactions among different types of institutions.
The first essay titled Effect of Trade and Political Institutions on Economic Institutions explores the relationship between trade and economic institutions under different political regimes. The findings
suggest that the effect of trade on economic institutions reduces significantly in the presence of extractive political institutions. In contrast, there is a positive and significant effect of trade on economic
institutions in countries with relatively less extractive and democratic institutions.
The second essay Catch-up in Institutional Quality: An Empirical Assessment, studies the process of catchup in institutional quality by asking whether a catch-up in institutional quality has occurred across
countries. The results indicate that a catch-up in economic institutional quality has occurred and that most countries with weak economic institutions have a higher rate of change than that of countries with
strong economic institutions. In contrast, for political institutions, the catch-up process lasts only a few years.
The third essay Firm Ownership and Provincial CO2 emissions in China, investigates whether China’s move towards a market economy has affected its CO2 emissions by considering the effect of firm ownership on provincial emissions. The hypothesis is that private firms are economically more efficient than non-private firms resulting in fewer CO2 emissions by the private firms. The results suggest that capital growth is the main driver of emissions growth and that private firm capital is more energy efficient than capital employed in non-private firms.