Commodity-exporting developing economies are often characterized as having needlessly procyclical fiscal policy: spending when commodity prices are high and cutting back when prices fall. The standard policy advice is instead to save during price windfalls and maintain spending during price...

This paper estimates the welfare change arising from the capture of the Republic of Yemen's capital in 2014, using a multi-themed household survey conducted as the capital was captured. Despite the little violence in this setting, the increase in fragility resulted in a large decline in...