The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has resulted in the death of over four million people since late 2019. To reduce the human and economic costs of COVID-19, different vac-cines have been developed and distributed across countries. There has been significant cross-country variation in...

There is significant cross-country variation in Covid-19 fatalities worldwide. In this study, we analyze the relationship between political trust and fatalities of the Covid-19 pandemic. By performing a cross-country analysis and controlling for other determinants, we find that government trust...

This study examines the effect of the elderly population on SARS-CoV-2 Disease (COVID-19) mortality for a sample of 146 countries. It shows that the elderly population is robustly associated with higher COVID-19 mortality. This effect, however, decreases significantly in countries with higher...

We use the synthetic control method to estimate the effect of international banking and energy sanctions from 2012 to 2015 on military spending of Iran. We create a synthetic control group that mimics the socioeconomic characteristics of Iran before the international sanctions of 2012. We then...

We estimate the opportunity cost for Iran due to the Islamic revolution and eight years' war with Iraq (1978/79-1988). We apply the synthetic control method in order to compare Iran with a synthetic Iran and answer this counterfactual question. Our results show that, in total, an average Iranian...

This study examines the causal joint effect of a new political regime and war against Iraq on life expectancy of Iranians for the period 1978–1988 during the revolution and war. I use a synthetic control approach to construct a synthetic Iran based on a weighted average of other Middle East...