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Examines the cross-country convergence in per capita incomes among nations with institutions conducive to saving, investing and producing. Relationship between low levels of education in the Third World; Indicators of contract enforceability and property rights security; Differences in institutional quality.

Conventional political wisdom holds that inclement weather on election day reduces turnout, and helps elect Republican candidates. Analysis of National Climatic Data Center weather records and National Election Studies (NES) survey data for 1984, 1986, and 1988 refutes the latter hypothesis: interaction variables based on various measures of partisanship and election-day rainfall show no evidence of partisan differences in the turnout-deterring impact of inclement weather. Furthermore, rainfall does not significantly reduce the probability of voting for the NES samples as a whole, but only among those respondents scoring low on the standard NES civic duty indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]