This paper adopts and develops the "fear of floating" theory to explain the decision to implement a de facto peg, the choice of anchor currency among multiple key currencies, and the role of central bank independence for these choices. We argue that since exchange rate depreciations are...

Economic damage from natural hazards can sometimes be prevented and always mitigated. However, private individuals tend to underinvest in such measures due to problems of collective action, information asymmetry and myopic behavior. Governments, which can in principle correct these market...

The authors discuss how scholars can bring theories of spatial policy dependence and empirical model specifications closer in line so that the empirical analysis actually tests the theoretical predictions. Comprehensive theories of spatial policy dependence typically suggest that the...

Famine mortality is preventable by government action and yet some famines kill. Amartya Sen has famously stated that no famine with significant excess mortality has ever occurred in a democracy. Yet, critics have argued that some countries have experienced famine mortality despite democratic...

Recent scholarship on exchange rate regime choice seeks to explain why some countries fix their exchange rate to an anchor currency, but it neglects the question to which currency countries peg. This article posits that an understanding of the choice of anchor currency also improves political...

If terror attacks from groups of one country are followed by similar attacks on the same target from groups of other similar countries, then this could be the consequence of contagion. However, just because one terror incident follows another does not necessarily imply that one is caused by the...

Americans are a major target of international terrorism. Yet, terrorists from some countries are much more likely to attack American citizens than terrorists from other countries. Similarly, anti-American terrorism from a specific foreign country is much more prevalent during certain periods...

Summary Governments can significantly reduce earthquake mortality by enforcing quake-proof construction regulation. We examine why many governments do not. First, mortality is lower in countries with higher earthquake propensity, where the payoffs to investments in mortality prevention are...

Objectives. We examined the effects of market income inequality (income inequality before taxes and transfers) and income redistribution via taxes and transfers on inequality in longevity. Methods. Life tables were used to compute Gini coefficients of longevity inequality for all individuals and...