The welfare economic method for analyzing the case for government intervention is often criticised for ignoring the political determination of policies. The standard method of accounting for this critique studies the case for intervention under the constraint that the level of the instrument in...

When social benefits cannot be measured, a hybrid organization which selects managers based on motivation can be used to balance profi…ts with a social purpose. This paper develops a model of social enterprise based on selection of citizen-managers with this goal in mind. It develops the...

This paper explores the consequences of creating and improving property rights so thatfixed assets can be used as collateral. This has become a cause célèbre of Hernando de Sotowhose views are influential in debates about policy reform concerning property rights.Hence, we refer to the economic...

This paper exploits data on the pattern of violence across regions and over time toestimate the impact of the peace process in Northern Ireland on house prices. Webegin with a linear model that estimates the average treatment effect of a conflictrelatedkilling on house prices - showing a...

We report on an on-going project, which asks a number of questions relevant to thestudy of state capacity. What are the main economic and political determinants ofthe state's capacity to raise revenue and support private markets? How do risks ofviolent conflict affect the incentives to invest in...

This paper studies the incidence of civil war over time. We put forward a canonical model of civil war, which relates the incidence of conflict to circumstances, institutions and features of the underlying economy and polity. We use this model to derive testable predictions and to interpret the...

This chapter develops a unified analytical framework, drawing on and extending theexisting literature on the subject, for studying the role of property rights in economicdevelopment. It addresses two fundamental and related questions concerning therelationship between property rights and...

This paper studies determinants of MPs expense claims in Parliament using the datareleased under the freedom of information act in 2004. Using a multiple regressionframework, we correlate expenses with three sets of variables: constituencycharacteristics, party affiliation and individual...

This paper explores the logic of …scal restraints in a political agencymodel with both moral hazard and adverse selection. The role of thepolitical process is both to discipline incumbents who may act againstthe public interest and to sort in those politicians who are most likelyact in...