This study examines how quality of political institutions affects the distribution of government budget and how development of government spending in major sections shapes the political institutions in Iran. This question has become especially important due to recent international sanctions,...

This study examines how quality of political institutions affects the distribution of government budget and how development of government spending in major sections shapes the political institutions in Iran. This question has become especially important due to recent international sanctions,...

This study examines how the quality of political institutions affects the distribution of the government budget in Iran. We first introduce a mechanism through which democracy can shift government expenditure from national defense (military) to productivity-enhancing public spending (e.g.,...

Oil spills can lead to irreversible environmental degradation and pose hazards to human health. We are the first to study the causal effects of onshore oil spills on neonatal and infant mortality rates. We use spatial data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor and the Demographic and Health...

This paper presents a unique historical experiment to explore the dynamics of institutional change in the Middle Ages. We have assembled a novel dataset, where information on political institutions for northern-central Italian cities between 1000 and 1300 is matched with detailed information on...

Medical expenditure risk can pose a major threat to living standards. We derive decomposable measures of catastrophic medical expenditure risk from reference-dependent utility with loss aversion. We propose a quantile regression based method of estimating risk exposure from cross-section data...

Using data from late 19th and early 20th century US prisons, this study considers how black and mulatto basal metabolic rates and calories varied with economic development. During the 19th century, black physical activity and net nutrition declined during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

Using data from late 19th and early 20th century US prisons, this study estimates the basal metabolic rates and calories for Americans of European descent. Throughout the 19th century, white basal metabolic rates (BMRs) and calories declined across their respective distributions, and much of the...

Using data from late 19th and early 20th century US prisons, this study estimates the basal metabolic rates and calories for Americans of European descent. Throughout the 19th century, white basal metabolic rates (BMRs) and calories declined across their respective distributions, and much of the...