Polygyny is an institution with deep roots in West Africa. Many papers have attempted to explain the rationality and persistence of this phenomenon through time. Less effort has been devoted to studying the effect of polygyny on household economic behavior. This question is policy relevant given...

This article examines the structural and spatial organization of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) across the Sahara. Building on the Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset (ACLED), a public collection of political violence data for developing states, the article investigates structural...

We study from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective how a network of military alliances and enmities affects the intensity of a conflict. The model combines elements from network theory and from the politico-economic theory of conflict. We postulate a Tullock contest success function...

This paper investigates the effects of religion on a broad set of development outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. We regroup these outcomes into three broad categories, namely, development process outcomes (growth, investment, conflict, and government quality), institutional outcomes (property...

This paper examines the individual determinants of ethnic identification using large sample surveys (about 30,000 respondents) representative of seven capitals of West-African countries. A small model that relates ethnic identification to an investment in ethnic capital suggests that individuals...

This paper examines the individual incentives to identify to one's ethnic group rather than to the nation, based on large sample surveys representative of seven capitals of West-African countries. Three main driving forces stand out. First, we show that education brings down ethnic salience at...

This paper examines the individual determinants of ethnic identication using large sample surveys (about 30,000 respondents) representative of seven capitals of West-African countries. A small model that relates ethnic identication to an investment in ethnic capital suggests that individuals...

In this note we empirically analyze the link between state capacity and civil conflict via the manufacturing sector, which is the source of wealth for an emerging new elite interested in obtaining political representation, and is the outcome of a new political equilibrium more in tune with...

We test whether living through conflict in childhood changes political beliefs and engagement. We combine data on the location and intensity of conflicts since 1945 with nationally representative data on political attitudes and behaviors from 17 sub-Saharan African countries. Exposure from ages...

Do democratization and globalization processes combine to increase the incidence of violence in developing and emerging economies? The present paper examines this hypothesis by a study of internal violence in Sub-Sahara Africa with its recent democratization wave, the globalization process and...