Resource-rich countries have tended to be autocratic and also have tended to use their resource wealth badly. The neoconservative agenda of promoting democratization in resource-rich countries thus offers the hopeful prospect of a better use of their economic opportunities. This paper examines...

In this article, we revisit Lipset’s law (Lipset 1959), which posits a positive and significant relationship between income and democracy. Using dynamic panel data estimation techniques that account for short-run cross-country heterogeneity in the relationship between income and democracy and...

This paper studies empirically the impact of mining on conflicts in Africa. Using novel data, we combine geo-referenced information over the 1997-2010 period on the location and characteristics of violent events and mining extraction of 27 minerals. Working with a grid covering all African...

We examine how natural resource location, rent sharing and fighting capacities of different groups matter for ethnic conflict. A new type of bargaining failure due to multiple types of potential conflicts (and hence multiple threat points) is identified. The theory predicts conflict to be more...

We construct a dynamic theory of civil conict hinging on inter-ethnic trust and trade. The model economy is inhabitated by two ethnic groups. Inter-ethnic trade requires imperfectly observed bilateral investments and one group has to form beliefs on the average propensity to trade of the other...

We study the effect of civil conflict on social capital, focusing on the experience of Uganda during the last decade. Using individual and county-level data, we document large causal effects on trust and ethnic identity of an exogenous outburst of ethnic conflicts in 2002-05. We exploit two...

Although the relationship between natural resources and civil war has received much attention, little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Controversies and contradictions in the stylized facts persist because resource extraction is treated as exogenous while in reality fighting affects...

SinceWorld War II there have been about fifty episodes of large-scale mass killings of civilians and massive forced displacements. They were usually meticulously planned and independent of military goals. We provide a model where con?ict onset, con?ict intensity and the decision to commit mass...

Much African land currently has low productivity and has attracted investors leasing land as a speculative option on higher future prices or productivity. To be beneficial land deals need to induce productivity enhancing investments. Some of these will be publicly provided (infrastructure,...

Africa is well endowed with potential for hydro and solar power, but its other endowments – shortages of capital, skills, and governance capacity – make most of the green options relatively expensive, while its abundance of hydro-carbons makes fossil fuels relatively cheap. Current power...