We estimate the political economy determinants of budget deficit forecast errors. Since the adoption of the Stability Pact, Eurozone governments have manipulated forecasts before elections. The political orientation and the institutional design of governments also affects the quality of forecasts.

The aim of this paper is to study the short and long-term fertility effects of mass violent conflict on different population sub-groups. The authors pool three nationally representative demographic and health surveys from before and after the genocide in Rwanda, identifying conflict exposure of...

We address the pitfalls of averaging by exploiting the longitudinal variation in aid to identify sudden and sharp increases in aid flows. Focusing on specific events, we test if aid accelerations correspond to policies and shocks in the recipient country. For a large sample of 145 recipient...

The overall goal of the report is to increase the capacity of researchers and policy makers to identify comparatively, and across time, how individuals, households and communities are affected by violent conflict. The report provides an extensive overview of existing practices and datasets used...

We analyse the convergence and heterogeneity of living standards between East and West Germany since unification. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we compare total individual income of permanent adult residents, including retirees and the unemployed, of East and West...

The paper analyzes the network structure of international trade. Adapting a network approach developed in the physical sciences, we propose that international trade functions like a scale-free network. For each commodity group we calculate a characteristic parameter which reflects the structure...

The relationship between land investment and tenure security is usually tested in land scarce but peaceful areas. This article examines instead the effects of land abundance and war for investment and tenure security. The paper demonstrates that war enhances land abundance. This implies that...

In the development literature, there exists no systematic study of external borrowing in post-conflict countries. We address this gap by analyzing statistical and case study evidence from three African countries. We find that many war-affected countries face rising debt arrears and deteriorating...

We analyze the determinants of household work contracted in the German shadow economy. The German socio-economic household panel, which enumerates casual domestic employment, is used to estimate the demand for such household work. The regressors include regional wage rates, household income and...

This paper analyses public policy choices in the security economy from an economic perspective. It discusses the role of public goods for national and global security and identifies the importance of the first- and second-order indirect effects of insecurity on economic activity, which include...