Haiti's economic development has been held back by a history of civil conflict and violence. With donor assistance declining from its exceptional levels following the 2010 earthquake, and concessional financing growing scarce, Haiti must learn to live with tighter budget constraints. At the same...

This paper explores the conditions under which public spending could minimize violent conflict related to oil wealth. Previous work suggests that oil can lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of the state as a prize or because it undermines the state's bureaucratic penetration....

In this paper, the conditions under which the spending patterns of oil resources may mitigate the risk of violent domestic conflict are studied. Some recent research suggests that more government spending either in general or specifically in welfare and military may reduce the risk of civil...

This paper explores the conditions under which public spending could minimize violent conflict related to oil wealth. Previous work on the resource curse suggests that oil can lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of the state as a prize or because it undermines the state's...

How do social contracts come into being?  This paper argues that norm adoption plays an important and neglected role in this process.  Using novel data from urban Nigeria, we examine why individuals adopt norms favoring a citizen obligation to pay tax where state enforcement is weak.  We find...

This paper explores the conditions under which public spending could minimize violent conflict related to oil wealth. Previous work suggests that oil can lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of the state as a prize or because it undermines the state's bureaucratic penetration....

The most influential recent work on the determinants of civil wars found the factors associated with the grievance motivation to be largely irrelevant. Our paper subjects the results of this empirical work to further scrutiny by embedding the study of civil war in a more general analysis of...

This paper analyses the economic growth impact of organised political violence. First, we identify the various manifestations of political violence (riots, coups and civil war) and their risk of occurrence by using a multinomial model. Second, we use predicted probabilities of aggregate violence...

How do social contracts come into being? This paper argues that norm adoption plays an important and neglected role in this process. Using novel data from urban Nigeria, we examine why individuals adopt norms favoring a citizen obligation to pay tax where state enforcement is weak. We find that...