This paper investigates the relationship between state-based conflict and entrepreneurship. From a survey of the existing literature, we formulate two hypotheses: (1) state-based conflict has a negative association with productive and opportunity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship, and (2) a...

This research advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that interpersonal population diversity has contributed significantly to the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intrasocietal conflicts. Exploiting an exogenous source of variations in population diversity across...

A notable feature of post-World War II civil wars is their very long average duration. We provide a theory of the persistence of civil wars. The civilian government can successfully defeat rebellious factions only by creating a relatively strong army. In weakly-institutionalized polities this...

Does faster economic growth increase pressure for democratic change, or reduce it? Using data for 154 countries for the period 1963-2007, we examine the short-run relationship between economic growth and moves toward and away from greater democracy. To address the potential endogeneity of...

In the context of a global security framework that mitigates interstate conflicts, nation-states establish a reputation for resolve by supporting foreign insurrections. Our theoretical predictions indicate that states with a greater number of co-ethnic groups abroad are more inclined to endorse...

This paper discusses four dimensions of the economics of AI that are neglected in business school and university teaching and research. First, students are not being taught that there is no 4th Industrial Revolution; on the contrary, the narrative of the inevitability and wonders of the 4IR is a...

Genocides and mass atrocities do not arise spontaneously, but tend to be meticulously sourced and managed. As such the concern in this paper is with the role of businesses in these processes, with a particular focus on the agency and decision making of entrepreneurs and managers. We critically...

This paper provides causal evidence on the importance of socioeconomic circumstances, socialization, and childhood events, in the formation of adult political behaviour and attitudes, using region-by-cohort variation in exposure to the Jewish expulsions in Nazi Germany as a quasi-experiment. We...

Why do some societies fail to adopt more efficient political and economic institutions in response to changing economic conditions? And why do such conditions sometimes generate conservative ideological backlashes and, at other times, progressive social and political movements? We propose an...

We compile data spanning the period 1900-2014 and up to 30 countries to study long-run patterns in the tax elasticity of top incomes. Our results show that top tax elasticities vary tremendously over time; they were medium-to-low before 1950, virtually zero during the postwar era up to 1980 and...