The evidence presented in these tables on the relationship between institutions and growth
leaves us skeptical about causality. Nonetheless, an advocate of institutional view might argue that
the average political outcome over time is a good measure of durable constraints. If institutions
reflect “deep” features of the environment, then even if constraints on the executive measure the
cleanness of the last election, the average of such constraints over time is a good proxy for the
“permanent” or “durable” constraints. It is then the average rather than the starting points that
belongs in the growth regression. Moreover, human capital, being not as “deep” as the average of
institutional outcomes, simply does not belong in the regression.