This research establishes that the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intrastate conflicts in the modern era reflect the long shadow of prehistory. Exploiting variations across national populations, it demonstrates that genetic diversity, as determined predominantly during the...

There is tremendous variation in conflict intensity both across and within civil conflict spells. Using an instrumental variables approach and a rich set of dynamic, empirical models, we find that the intensity of conflict is negatively related to per-capita income. Economic conditions also...

This paper reviews the economics approach to conflict and national borders. The paper provides a summary of ideas and concepts from the economics literature on the size of nations; illustrates them within an analytical framework where populations engage in conflict over borders and resources,...

This paper analyzes the impact of international trade on the quality of institutions, such as contract enforcement, property rights, or investor protection. It presents a model in which imperfect institutions create rents for some parties within the economy, and are a source of comparative...

In this paper, we propose a tractable variant of the open economy neoclassical growth model that emphasizes political economy and contracting frictions. The political economy frictions involve disagreement and political turnover, while the contracting friction is a lack of commitment regarding...

This paper offers a comparative study of the evolution of employment systems in the U.S. and Japan, using a game-theoretic framework in which an employment system is viewed as an equilibrium outcome of the strategic interactions among management, labor, and government. The paper identifies...

Hayek (1960) distinguishes the institutions of English freedom, which guarantee the independence of judges from political interference in the administration of justice, from those of American freedom, which allow judges to restrain law-making powers of the sovereign through constitutional...