This paper explores the conditions under which public spending could minimize violent conflict related to oil wealth. Previous work suggests that oil can lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of the state as a prize or because it undermines the state's bureaucratic penetration....

This paper argues that state weakness is broader than implied previously in the civil war literature, and that particular types of weakness in interaction with natural resources have aggravating or mitigating consequences for the risk of civil war. While in anocracies or unstable regimes natural...

This article analyzes the effect of central bank independence on fiscal deficits. Previous literature finds a negative relationship between bank independence and deficits in OECD countries. No such relationship is found for developing countries. We argue that independent and conservative central...

type="main" xml:id="ecpo12030-abs-0001" <p>Central bank independence (CBI) and fixed exchange rates are used by governments to achieve stable prices. This article analyzes the mechanisms through which the two monetary institutions could work: Indirectly via a disciplinary effect on money growth...</p>

How do social contracts come into being?  This paper argues that norm adoption plays an important and neglected role in this process.  Using novel data from urban Nigeria, we examine why individuals adopt norms favoring a citizen obligation to pay tax where state enforcement is weak.  We find...

The most influential recent work on the determinants of civil wars found the factors associated with the grievance motivation to be largely irrelevant. Our paper subjects the results of this empirical work to further scrutiny by embedding the study of civil war in a more general analysis of...

Exchange rate policy changes are not only a function of economic conditions, but are also fundamentally related to political processes. This paper analyzes the propensity of policy makers to relax fixed exchange rate regimes by performing regular realignments. The argument is that when...