Toke S. Aidt is Reader in Economics at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, and a CESIfo Research Associate. He is the former president of the European Public Choice Society and editor of European Journal of Political Economy (2014-23). His primary research interests lie in the area of political economics and public choice with a particular focus on democratisation, public finance, and corruption in a historical perspective. His has published 56 peered-reviewed articles in journals, such as Econometrica, The Economic Journal, Journal of Politics, Journal of Economic History, and American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. He has also edited several research monographs. His research has been supported by the grants from the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy.
Raphaël Franck is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), as well as a CEPR Research Fellow, a CESIfo Research Associate, and a GLO Fellow. He previously held visiting positions at George Mason University (USA) and at Brown University (USA), where he was a Marie Curie EU Fellow. His primary research interests lie in the areas of political economy and economic growth with regional foci on Western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa from 1800 to the present. His research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Political Science Review, Econometrica, The Economic Journal, The Journal of Monetary Economics, and The Review of Economics and Statistics.