Alesina & Spolaore: "The Size of Nations"

Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore (2003): The Size of Nations. The MIT Press.
Alesina and Spolaore use the tools of economic analysis to examine the formation and change of political borders. They argue that while these issues have always been at the core of historical analysis, international economists have tended to regard the size of a country as "exogenous," or no more subject to explanation than the location of a mountain range or the course of a river. The authors consider a country's borders to be subject to the same analysis as any other man-made institution. In The Size of Nations, they argue that the optimal size of a country is determined by a cost-benefit trade-off between the benefits of size and the costs of heterogeneity. In a large country, per capita costs may be low, but the heterogeneous preferences of a large population make it hard to deliver services and formulate policy. Smaller countries may find it easier to respond to citizen preferences in a democratic way.
More info (incl. Table of Contents): The MIT Press or Amazon.com
Sample chapter: Download!

Lal: "The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance"

Deepak Lal (1998/2001): Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance. The MIT Press.
For more info: The MIT Press or Amazon.com
For the Table of Contents: Please click here!

Omerod: "Butterfly Economics"

Paul Omerod (2001): Butterfly Economics: A New General Theory of Social and Economic Behavior. Philadelphia, PA: Basic Books.
Paul Ormerod, author of The Death of Economics (1994), offers a different idea: "In the current state of scientific knowledge, it is simply not possible to carry out forecasts which are systematically accurate over a period of time." The title Butterfly Economics comes from the idea in chaos theory that a butterfly flapping its wings here could cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. It's not that chaos is guaranteed in economics; it's just that we never know when it'll occur, or what will cause it. "Small changes can have big consequences, and vice versa," Ormerod notes. His arguments range far afield. He talks about crime and family structure, biology, fashion, and many other topics seemingly unrelated to economics. But it comes down to this: No matter how you analyze it, human behavior is surprisingly random. And no economic model can account for all of it at any given time.
For more info: Amazon.com or Basic Books

Parker's "Economic Growth Databases"

Economic, Demographic, Social and Geographic Statistics
across Countries & Cultures
Databases: http://faculty.insead.edu/parker/resume/personal.htm

Analytic Reference:
Philip M. Parker (2000): Physioeconomics: The Basis for Long-Run Economic Growth, The MIT Press.
[For more info on the book: The MIT Press or Amazon.com]