Persson and Tabellini only include countries of democratic rule in their sample. To be included in the cross-section, an average of the Freedom House indices for civil liberties and political rights (fh_cl and fh_pr) lower than an average of 5 for the 1990-1998 period is required. For the 1960- 1998 panel data, Persson and Tabellini include country-years that obtain a score greater than zero on the Polity democracy indicator (p_polity2) (For details, see Persson and Tabellini 2003, 74- 77).