We examine how globalization affects trade patterns and welfare when conflict prevails domestically. We do so in a simple model of trade, in which a natural resource like oil is contested by competing groups using real resources (ʺgunsʺ). Thus, conflict is viewed as ultimately stemming from...

"During the Chinese Cultural Revolution many schools stopped normal operation for a long time, senior high schools stopped student recruitment for up to 6 years, and universities stopped recruitment for an even longer period. Such large scale school interruptions significantly reduced the...

When a society overthrows a ruler - call the ruler Caesar - what determines whether Caesar is killed or enslaved? This paper presents a model of killing versus enslaving Caesar, based on a new theory which unifies justice, status, and power. The model pertains to societies which value ordinal...

Current empirical growth models limit the determinants of country growth to geographic, economic, and institutional variables. This study draws on conflict variables from the Correlates of War (COW) project to ask a critical question: How do different types of conflict affect country growth...

We study the effect of the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath on migration intentions of the Egyptian youth. We measure revolution intensity using the spacial variation in the number of deaths during the revolution from the Statistical Database of the Egyptian Revolution Wikithawra and...

We study the effect of a corruption reflection index on internal conflict in Iran using a novel measure of corruption based on newspaper coverage. We use the Vector Autoregression (VAR) model and its applied tools of impulse response and variance decomposition analyses to track the response of...

The unprecedented consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have raised concerns about intensified social unrest, but evidence for such a link and the underlying channels is still lacking. We use a unique combination of nationally representative survey data, event data on social unrest, and data on...

Existing research has pointed to the decreasing effect of revolutions and wars on income inequality. It is unclear whether this reduction is the result of ongoing changes within countries before revolutions and wars or if the results are standalone effects. In this study, we focus on the case of...

The Punjab Insurgency in India (1978-1993) took the lives of over 20,000 people. Yet, there has been little research on the economic causes and consequences of the conflict in Punjab, which has been classified as a civil war and also an insurgency. In this article, I delve into some of the...

Between 1966 and 1976, China experienced a Cultural Revolution (CR). During this period, the education of around 17 birth cohorts was interrupted by between 1 and 8 years. In this paper we examine whether, and by how much, this large-scale schooling interruption affected their children's...