This paper analyzes the impact of organized crime on the allocation of public transfers. We assemble an innovative data set on Italian mafia and public funds to businesses at municipality level and instrument current mafia activity with rainfall in the XIX century and geographical shifters of...

We question whether the impact of constitutions on economic outcomes (Persson and Tabellini, 2004) is direct. We show that voter turnout is a channel through which forms of government affect economic policies. We provide evidence of the existence of two relationships: the first links...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between laws strengthening women’s rights, and children’s outcomes, namely child labor and educational attainment. We analyze the effects of a land reform introduced in Vietnam in 2003 that had the objective of reinforcing women’s...

Millions of people are killed or wounded by small arms each year. The aim of this study is to enhance our understanding of “missing” arms trade across countries. We proceed in two steps. First, we measure the extent of missing arms trade on the basis of official trade statistics. We...