The role of institutions in cross-section income and panel data growth models: A deeper investigation on the weakness and proliferation of instruments

► We examine the role of institutions in per capita income and growth models. ► The work develops a deeper investigation of weak and too many instruments. ► The cross-section estimation suggests that institutions matter but most models suffer from the issue of weak instruments. ► The results from the growth models indicate that there is mixed evidence on the role of institutions. ► Collapsing the number of instruments results in fewer significant coefficients for institutions.