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Tax Aversion and the Social Contract in Africa

Robinson, James A. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2022

Despite the low levels of taxation and public good provision in Africa, I provide evidence that a large proportion of Africans prefer lower taxation and fewer public goods. This cannot be explained by standard arguments about problems of accountability, governance or state capacity. Instead I...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013191019

Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq

Berman, Eli - 2008

We develop and test an economic theory of insurgency motivated by the informal literature and by recent military doctrine. We model a three-way contest between violent rebels, a government seeking to minimize violence by mixing service provision and coercion, and civilians deciding whether to...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464041

Fertility, Migration, and Altruism

Berman, Eli - 2000

intergenerational altruism. Thus, immigrants may be self-selected on fertility. Soviet Jews who migrate to Israel despite high migration …. Selection on altruism can explain why historically immigrant-absorbing countries like the U.S. have higher fertility than other …. Selection on altruism also implies that immigrant-absorbing regions will grow faster, or have higher per capita income, or both …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471230

Religion, Terrorism and Public Goods : Testing the Club Model

Berman, Eli - 2008

Can rational choice modeling explain why Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah and other radical religious rebels are so lethal? The literature rejects theological explanations. We propose a club framework, which emphasizes the function of voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464922

State Capacity and Economic Development : A Network Approach

Acemoglu, Daron; García Jimeno, Camilo; Robinson, James A. - 2014

We study the direct and spillover effects of local state capacity using the network of Colombian municipalities. We model the determination of local and national state capacity as a network game in which each municipality, anticipating the choices and spillovers created by other municipalities...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012458850

The Political Agenda Effect and State Centralization

Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A.; Torvik, Ragnar - 2016

We provide a potential explanation for the absence of, and unwillingness to create, centralized power in the hands of a national state based on the political agenda effect. State centralization induces citizens of different backgrounds, interests, regions or ethnicities to coordinate their...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012456426

Endogenous Presidentialism

Robinson, James A.; Torvik, Ragnar - 2008

We develop a model to understand the incidence of presidential and parliamentary institutions. Our analysis is predicated on two ideas: first, that minorities are relatively powerful in a parliamentary system compared to a presidential system, and second, that presidents have more power with...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464044

Fear and Dreams : Understanding the Non-Institutional sources of Leader Strategy

Bautista, María Angélica; Galán Guerrero, Juan Sebastián - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2024

Political leaders make policy choices which are often hard to explain via institutions. We use the behavior of Colombian paramilitary groups as an environment to study non-institutional sources of variation in how public good provision and violence are combined to control populations. We...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10015072952