Traditionally, governments seek to mobilize tax revenues by expanding their enforcement of existing tax regimes and facilitating tax payments. However, enforcement and facilitation can be costly and produce diminishing marginal returns if citizens are unwilling to pay their taxes. This paper...

Post-election violence is a common form of conflict, but its underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Using data from the 2007 Philippine mayoral elections, this paper provides evidence that post-election violence is particularly intense after narrow victories by incumbents. Using a...

This paper explores the effect of oil shocks on electoral outcomes. Using a new polling and election data set for 207 elections across 50 democracies, the paper shows that oil price increases systematically lower the odds of reelection for incumbents. The analysis verifies that these shocks -...

Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, charged that economics, and in particular development economics, must broaden the scope of the questions it asks - thereby also becoming more relevant to today's complex, multi-faceted problems. He discussed the following topics: (i) from...

What effect does democratization have on meritocratic practices in the civil service? Democratization increases performance incentives within the bureaucracy. This leads to more meritocracy for individuals with performance-enhancing characteristics, such as educational attainment, which...

Community-based natural resource management (CBRNM) aims to realize sustainable management of resources and improvements in livelihood. A central focus is the empowerment of indigenous and local communities through customary or devolved rights to common pool resources. Less attention is given to...

A field experiment in rural Liberia is used to study democratic participation in fragile states. Fragile states are marked by political fragmentation, local patronage systems, and voter vulnerability. To understand the effects of such conditions on democratic expression through elections, the...