We study the intergenerational health consequences of forced displacement and incarceration of Japanese Americans in the US during WWII. Incarcerated mothers had babies who were less healthy at birth. This decrease in health represents a shift in the entire birthweight distribution due to...

We develop a framework that examines the organizational challenges faced by central rulers governing large territories, where administrative power needs to be delegated to local elites. We describe how economic change can motivate rulers to empower different elites and emphasize the interaction...

We examine the impact of conflict-driven displacement on human capital. We focus on the Mozambican civil war (1977-1992), during which more than four million civilians fled to the countryside, cities, and refugee camps and settlements in neighboring countries. We leverage the full post-war...

For nearly three centuries, Indigenous peoples within the borders of present-day Canada engaged in treaty-making with the British Crown and other European powers. These treaties regularly formed the colonial legal basis for access to Indigenous lands. However, treaties were not negotiated...

"Why do some countries have growth-enhancing financial systems, while others do not? Why have some countries developed the necessary investor protection laws and contract-enforcement mechanisms to support financial institutions and markets, while others have not? This paper reviews existing...

This paper proposes that strong financial, judicial, and labor market institutions provide comparative advantage in clean industries, and thereby improve a country's environmental quality. Five complementary tests support this hypothesis. First, industries that depend on institutions are...

Do political institutions shape economic policy? I argue that this question should naturally appeal to economists. Moreover, the answer is in the affirmative, both in theory and in practice. In particular, recent theoretical work predicts systematic eects of electoral rules and political regimes...