This paper highlights the importance of natural resource concentration and ethnic group regional concentration for ethnic conflict. A new type of bargaining failure due to multiple types of potential conflicts (and hence multiple threat points) is identified. The theory predicts war to be more...

We investigate the relationship between violence and economic risk preferences in Afghanistan combining: (i) a two-part experimental procedure identifying risk preferences, violations of Expected Utility, and specific preferences for certainty; (ii) controlled recollection of fear based on...

Scholars have often argued that crime hinders growth, but the empirical literature assessing such an effect is scarce. By exploiting cross-municipal income and crime data for Mexico, in this study we find evidence indicating that drug-related crime indeed deters growth.

We discuss the literature on natural resources and violent conflict. The theoretical literature is rich and ambiguous, and the empirical literature is equally multifaceted. Theory predicts that resource booms or discoveries may attenuate or accentuate the risk of conflict, depending on various...

Economic development generally implies that traditional egalitarian norms and beliefs are replaced by modern individualistic values. Particularly when opportunities for advancement are unequally presented to people, this transformation may be accompanied by polarization and violent conflict. We...

Many of the most pernicious economic institutions and policies create entry barriers or manipulate factor prices to transfer resources from entrepreneurs and workers to groups that hold political power. These inefficiencies partly result from the fact that direct and efficient fiscal instruments...

This paper discusses the interrelation between the choice of technology and rent seeking. First, the players have to decide on the purchase of a technology. If the technology is acquired, realized profits are distributed via a rent-seeking contest. I can show that players will reject profitable...

In Mexico, conflicts between drug-trafficking organisations result in a high number of deaths and immense suffering among both victims and non-victims every year. Little scientific research exists which identifies and quantifies the monetary and nonmonetary consequences of ongoing violent...

We study the effect of civil conflict on social capital, focusing on the experience of Uganda during the last decade. Using individual and county-level data, we document causal effects on trust and ethnic identity of an exogenous outburst of ethnic conflicts in 2002-04. We exploit two waves of...

This chapter examines how cultural similarities (or differences) represented by common language roots affect economic activities. When individuals share some common linguistic repertoires, they are more inclined to develop commercial relationships and conduct business transactions than in the...