This study investigates the effects of introducing elections on public goods and redistribution in rural China. A large and unique survey was collected to document the history of political reforms and economic policies and exploit the staggered timing of the introduction of elections for causal...

Unique survey data is used to study whether the introduction of local elections in China made local leaders more accountable towards local constituents. A simple model is developed to predict the effects on different policies of increasing local leader accountability, taking into account that...

Tropical deforestation accounts for almost one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and threatens the world.s most diverse ecosystems. The prevalence of illegal forest extraction in the tropics suggests that understanding the incentives of local bureaucrats and politicians who enforce...

A review of several decades of scholarship on civil war, focusing on the answers to key questions: Why do wars begin? Who fights? How are armed groups organized? How can we end and prevent internal war? A survey of the growing body of macroeconomic and microeconomic evidence to assess the...

Scholars have pointed to ethnic and other social divisions as a leading cause of economic underdevelopment, due in part to their adverse effects on public good provision and collective action. We investigate this issue in post-war Sierra Leone, one of the world’s poorest countries. To...