To what extent has Sub-Saharan Africa's slow economic growth over the past five decades been due to price and trade policies that have discouraged production of agricultural relative to non-agricultural tradables? This paper uses a new set of estimates of policy distortions to relative prices to...

We estimate the income elasticity of government expenditures using variation in the international oil price as a plausibly exogenous source of within-country variation of countries' permanent income. Our short run elasticity estimates, between 0.25-0.50, are generally somewhat smaller than the...

We examine the effects of oil rents on corruption and state stability exploiting the exogenous within-country variation of a new measure of oil rents for a panel of 30 oil-exporting countries during the period 1992 to 2005. We find that an increase in oil rents significantly increases...

In many western democracies, political parties with extreme platforms challenge more moderate incumbents. This paper analyses the impact of economic growth on the support for extreme political platforms. We provide a theoretical argument in favor of growth effects (as opposed to level effects)...

We examine the effects that variations in the international food prices have on democracy and intra-state conflict using panel data for over 120 countries during the period 1970-2007. Our main finding is that in Low Income Countries increases in the international food prices lead to a...

This paper shows that foreign aid has a signicant positive average effect on real per capita GPD growth if, and only if, the quantitatively large negative reverse causal effect of per capita GDP growth on foreign aid is adjusted for in the growth regression. Instrumental variables estimates...

We examine the effect that revenue windfalls from international commodity price booms have on sovereign bond spreads using panel data for 36 emerging market economies during the period 1997-2007. Our main finding is that commodity price booms lead to a significant reduction in the sovereign bond...

This paper examines the effect that windfalls from international commodity price booms have on net foreign assets in a panel of 145 countries during the period 1970-2007. The main finding is that windfalls from international commodity price booms lead to a significant increase in net foreign...

We exploit the large inflow of immigrants to the US during the 1870-1920 period to examine the effects that changes in the cultural composition of the population of US counties had on output growth. We construct measures of fractionalization and polarization to distinguish between the different...

We examine the effects that revenue windfalls from international commodity price booms have on external debt in a panel of 93 countries during the period 1970-2007. Our main finding is that increases in the international prices of exported commodity goods lead to a significant reduction in the...