How should a state which lacks the monopoly of violence go about acquiring it? We investigate the use of high-powered incentives for members of the Colombian army as part of a strategy to combat left-wing guerillas and build the state's monopoly of violence. We show that this top-down...

This article uses the different mortality rates of European colonialists to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies. In places where mortality rates were high they did not settle, but set up...

We construct a model to study the implications of changes in political institutions for economic institutions. A change in political institutions alters the distribution of de jure political power, but creates incentives for investments in de facto political power to partially or even fully...

This article uses the different mortality rates of European colonialists to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies. In places where mortality rates were high they did not settle, but set up...

The majority of labor transactions throughout much of history and a significant fraction of such transactions in many developing countries today are "coercive", in the sense that force or the threat of force plays a central role in convincing workers to accept employment or its terms. We propose...

When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be influenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses "populist' policies - i.e., policies to the left...

We propose a model of cycles of conflict and distrust. Overlapping generations of agents from two groups sequentially play coordination games under incomplete information about whether the other side consists of bad types who always take bad actions. Good actions may be misperceived as bad and...

We provide a general framework for the analysis of the dynamics of institutional change (e.g., democratization, extension of political rights or repression of different groups), and how these dynamics interact with (anticipated and unanticipated) changes in the distribution of political power...

We propose a model of cycles of distrust and conflict. Overlapping generations of agents from two groups sequentially play coordination games under incomplete information about whether the other side consists of "extremists" who will never take the good/trusting action. Good actions may be...