This paper assesses the role of ideas in economic change, combining economic and historical analysis with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology. Belief systems shape the system of categories ( "pre-confirmatory bias" ) and perceptions (confirmatory bias), and are themselves...

Using surveys and administrative data from post-war Liberia, the hypothesis that peacekeeping deployments build peace "from the bottom up" through contributions to local security and local economic and social vitality was tested. The hypothesis reflects official thinking about how peacekeeping...