Corporate finance theory predicts that firms' characteristics affect agency costs and hence their efficiency. Cummins et al. (2006) have proposed a cost function specification that measures separately insurer efficiency in handling risk pooling, risk management, and financial intermediation...

It has long been recognized that the quality of property rights greatly impacts the economic development of a country and the use of its natural resources. Since Long (1975), the conventional wisdom has been that ownership risk induces a firm to overuse the stock of a resource. However, the...

Corporate finance theory predicts that firms’ characteristics affect agency costs and hence their efficiency. Cummins et al (2006) have proposed a cost function specification that measures separately insurer efficiency in handling risk pooling, risk management, and financial intermediation...

We examine the effects of famine relief efforts (food aid) in regions undergoing civil war. In our model, warlords seize a fraction of all aid entering the region. How much they loot affects their choice of army size; therefore the manner in which aid is delivered influences warfare. We identify...

This paper presents a model of conflict which allows belligerents to recruit both adults and children as soldiers. Warlords fight over the country's productive (i.e. non-military) output, and are aware of the tradeoff involved in recruitment: anyone who becomes a soldier cannot produce output....

We build a political economy model of state policy choice highlighting the challenges to breaking barriers to the adoption of inclusive policies in Africa. We highlight necessary and sufficient conditions for a political leader to gain from implementing exclusive policies: (i) Implementing...

We examine the effects of famine relief efforts (food aid) in regions undergoing civil war. In our model, warlords seize a fraction of all aid and use it to feed soldiers. They hire their troops within a population of farmers heterogeneous in skills. We determine the equilibrium distribution of...

Most natural commons are subject to discontinuities and threshold effects, so their gradual depletion may result in a sudden irreversible loss of the associated ecological services. Yet, it is often impossible to locate these thresholds with certainty. We analyze this context using a variant of...

Most natural commons are subject to discontinuities and threshold effects, so their gradual depletion may result in a sudden irreversible loss of the associated ecological services. Yet, it is often impossible to locate these thresholds with certainty. We analyze this context using a variant of...