This paper studies the dynamics of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since the outbreak of the Second (or Al-Aqsa) Intifada in September 2000, during which more than 3,300 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed. The conflict has followed an uneven pattern, with...

What are the main causes of international terrorism? The lessons from the surge of academic research that followed 9/11 remain elusive. The careful investigation of the relative roles of economic and political conditions did little to change the fact that existing econometric estimates diverge...

What are the main causes of international terrorism? The lessons from the surge of academic research that followed 9/11 remain elusive. The careful investigation of the relative roles of economic and political conditions did little to change the fact that existing econometric estimates diverge...

To better understand potential relationships between income and terrorism, we study data for 1,527 subnational regions in 75 countries between 1970 and 2014. Results consistently imply an inverted U-shape that remains robust to accounting for a comprehensive set of region-level covariates,...

A multi-stage model on the course of war is presented: Individual battles are modeled as private value all-pay auctions with asymmetric combatants of two opposing teams. These auctions are placed within a multi-stage framework with a tug-of-war structure. Such framing provides a microfounded...

This paper analyzes a tug of war contest between two teams. In each round of the tug of war a pair of agents from the opposing teams competes in a private value all-pay auction with asymmetric type distributions and effort effectiveness. Whichever team arrives fi rst at a given lead in terms of...

This study empirically investigates the impact of group characteristics and host country conditions on the duration and the ending of terrorist organizations and rebel groups. The empirical analysis relies on data for more than 600 armed groups from the Terrorist Organization Profiles, collected...

Over the last several decades, both economists and political scientists have shown interest in coups d'état. Numerous studies have been dedicated to understanding the causes of coups. However, model uncertainty still looms large. About one hundred potential determinants of coups have been...

We explore the supply side of the market for suicide bombers. While the strategic edge of suicide attacks for certain terrorist organizations has been thoroughly explored, the motivation of the suppliers remains quite mysterious. Following a review of existing theoretical approaches and...

Over the last several decades, both economists and political scientists have shown interest in coups d'état. Numerous studies have been dedicated to understanding the causes of coups. However, model uncertainty still looms large. About one hundred potential determinants of coups have been...