Mariko Klasing appointed as co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics

Associate Professor Mariko Klasing has been appointed as co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

The mission of the Journal of Comparative Economics is to lead the new orientations of research in comparative economics. The main focus of the journal is on the comparison of the economic effects of institutions broadly speaking, be it in the legal sphere, in the political sphere or in the sphere of culture, social norms, et cetera. The journal raises a wide variety of questions, starting with what institutions are critical (courts, credit markets, good regulations, etc.) for successful growth. It also includes research on how these institutions should be measured (subjective surveys, particular laws on the books etc.) and looks into why certain institutions, such as courts and regulatory culture, are slow-moving while others, such as constitutions and electoral procedures, are relatively fast-moving. The journal also includes research on why there is so much cross-sectional variance in the quality of institutions, and what kinds of initial conditions or historic natural experiments can be employed to estimate the causal impact of institutions on economic performance. 

Mariko Klasing is Associate Professor at the Department of Global Economics and Management of the Faculty of Economics and Business. Her areas of expertise are cultural economics, economic development, and the interplay between entrepreneurship and technological change. In her work, she has, for instance, studied the interplay between culture and economic development, the cultural roots of entrepreneurship and the importance of shared values for institutions. Three of Klasing’s papers have previously been published in the Journal of Comparative Economics.