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Abstract:Skepticism prevails among a substantial number of economists over a possible connection between civil liberties and the level of economic activity. Until now, empirical research on economic growth has found mixed evidence on the influence of civil liberties. Disaggregation of the Freedom House Civil Liberties Index allows a fresh empirical look at the effect of human rights on long-term growth or economic development. Our results show that one of the four subcategories of the index outperforms all available indicators of property rights institutions in explaining long-term economic growth. This subcategory, Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights, captures the level of second generation human rights that affect the mobility of individuals with respect to housing, employment and university education, as well as the level of protection of property rights. This result is robust with respect to reverse causation, important omitted variables such as geography and human capital, as well as to a variety of sensitivity tests. We also discuss in our conceptual framework how civil liberties work as an indicator of the prevalence of the rule of law and how the latter affects growth or development as an essential public input.

This paper addresses two issues empirically that have been somewhat neglected in the marketing literature. The first one is whether or not basic marketing relationships at the establishment level are robust or stable to the realization of major events that change the market environm ent. The second one is whether after these events take place the marketing relationships for new establishments are the same or different from those of existing establishments. What allows us to address these issues is a combination of factors af fecting the operation of gas stations in Pamplona, Spain. We conducted a survey of gas stations in 1998 when prices of gasoline products were fixed by the government and a similar survey in 2007 when gas retail prices were set by market participant. This major change in market environment was the result of a price liberalization law. A comparison of the same establishments in the two surveys allows us to address the first issue identified above. A comparison of new establishments and existing ones in the most recent survey allows us to addr ess the second issue identified above. Briefly put, customer satisfaction and its determinants prove to have a robust, stable relationship with respect to the changed market environment during this nine year period. On the other hand, some aspects of the relation between future patronage intentions and its determinants are subs tantially altered by the changed market environment. The aspects that remain the same in both comparisons are, thus, geographically as well as inter-temporally stable. Those that change often can be associated with specific changes in the nature of the market for gas stations in Pamplona during this nine year period. ; The authors acknowledge financial support for this research from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science: Project SEJ2005-0663/ECON.