Endogenous Constitutional Change and Economic Development: Empirical Evidence from American Indian Nations

The seminar will draw from a recent paper in which Akee, along with co-authors Miriam Jorgensen and Uwe Sunde, examines the dynamic changes to constitutions in democracies and their effect on economic outcomes. Utilizing a novel data set on American Indian tribal nations, they investigate the influence the party of the U.S. president at the time of initial adoption of the American Indian constitution had on the constitutional details, as well as which tribes were constrained by this influence and subsequently changed their constitutions. Akee will discuss their findings which suggest that over time the most constrained tribes not only changed their institutions but, in doing so, improved their economic performance in terms of per capita income, employment rate, and labor force participation.