Building state capacity is uniquely challenging in fragile states. We report results from a randomized evaluation of a major Afghan government initiative to increase capacity by modernizing its payroll. The reform, which required teachers to biometrically register and receive salary payments via...

The paper is structured around three main contributions. First, it takes advantage of a unique survey on Afghan asylum seekers in Germany to provide novel descriptive insights into asylum seekers' beliefs about their outcomes and the associated intention to overstay. Second, it estimates asylum...

When did Germany become economically integrated? Within the framework of a gravity model, based on a new data set of about 40,000 observations on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany over the period 1885-1933, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe. There...