We collect a new dataset on capital punishment in the US and we propose a test of racial bias based upon patterns of sentence reversals. We model the courts as minimizing type I and II errors. If trial courts were unbiased, conditional on defendants race the error rate should be independent of...

This paper studies kinship band networks as capital market institutions. Membership in a community where individuals are dynastically linked has two effects on informal credit. First, the nonanonymity of the dynastic link allows to sanction the defaulters' offspring and induce compliance even in...

This paper studies the relationship between civil war and the value of firms in a poor, resource-abundant country using microeconomic data for Angola. We focus on diamond mining firms and conduct an event study on the sudden end of the conflict, marked by the death of the rebel movement leader...