Does the environment have a causal effect on economic development? Using meteorological data, we reconstruct every country's exposure to the universe of tropical cyclones during 1950-2008. We exploit random within-country year-to-year variation in cyclone strikes to identify the causal effect of...

We examine the effect of malaria on economic development in Africa over the very long run. Using data on the prevalence of the mutation that causes sickle cell disease we measure the impact of malaria on mortality in Africa prior to the period in which formal data were collected. Our estimate is...

We attempt to make inferences about the elasticity of the government's demand for specific weapons by analyzing the statistical relationship between quantity and cost revisions across the population of major weapon systems, using data contained in the Pentagon's Selected Acquisition Reports. The...

We investigate whether local average treatment effects (LATE's) can be extrapolated to new settings. We extend the analysis and framework of Dehejia, Pop-Eleches, and Samii (2015), which examines the external validity of the Angrist-Evans (1998) reduced-form natural experiment of having two...

This paper documents two key costs of AD protection. First, once AD has been adopted countries often have a difficult time restraining its use. In recent years 'new' users have accounted for half of the overall world total. Many of the heaviest AD users are countries who did not even have an AD...

While the tobacco industry is among the most substantial and successful economic enterprises, tobacco consumption kills more people than any other product. Economic analysis of tobacco product markets, particularly for cigarettes, has contributed considerable insight to debates about the...

Infectious disease is currently the main cause of mortality in the world and has been even more important historically. This paper reviews recent research in economic epidemiology. Specifically, it discusses the occurrence of infectious diseases and the effects of public health interventions...

This paper shows that the risk of devaluation can be an important factor accounting for the stylized facts of exchange-rate-based stabilizations. This conclusion follows from studying the quantitative implications of a two-sector equilibrium business cycle model of a small open economy...

The paper argues that Lucas overestimates the Friedman-Bailey type of welfare cost of inflation and neglects other important welfare effects. With an alternative interpretation of the non-observability of low interest rates than the one Lucas gave and the introduction of taxes that reduce the...

This essay discusses several potential economic, political and social costs of the current path of AI technologies. I argue that if AI continues to be deployed along its current trajectory and remains unregulated, it may produce various social, economic and political harms. These include:...