Typically, economics assumes that property rights over productive resources or goods are perfectly defined and costlessly enforced. The costs of insecurity and the resultant conflict are, however, real and often economically significant. In this paper, we examine how international trade regimes...

We develop a theory of interstate conflict in which the degree of genealogical relatedness between populations has a positive effect on their conflict propensities because more closely related populations, on average, tend to interact more and develop more disputes over sets of common issues. We...

We assess the robustness of previous findings on the determinants of terrorism. Using extreme bound analysis, the three most comprehensive terrorism datasets, and focusing on the three most commonly analyzed aspects of terrorist activity, i.e., location, victim, and perpetrator, we re-assess the...

Many experts claim that the incidence of suicide attacks is driven by religious cleavages. To test this hypothesis, we investigate whether the total number of suicide attacks per violent conflict or the annual number of suicide attacks per country is associated with simmering religious...

This paper defines the global economic costs of conflict and suggests two key criteria, namely comprehensiveness and consistency, which are necessary for a valid calculation of such costs. A critical review of the literature reveals that most studies focus on national income losses, using...

In this paper I attempt to highlight the financial aspects of the Islamic State (ISIS) phenomenon. A ‘sui generis' State Scale Entity, from an Al-Qaeda branch, evolved according to David Cohen the US Treasury Undersecretary to ‘the best funded terrorist organization we've confronted'....

Over the last two decades or so, there has been a democratic turn in peace and conflict research, i.e. the peculiar impact of democratic politics on a wide range of security issues has attracted more and more attention. Many of these studies are inspired by Immanuel Kant's famous essay on...

While most civil wars seem to have an economic basis, they are generally pushed by political, ethnic, and religious differences. This paper attempts to identify the drivers of the Syrian civil war of 2011 by investigating the role of ethnic divisions in starting a conflict. We integrate a...

This paper presents the “Ukraine Support Tracker”, which lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war. This third version covers government commitments between January 24 and May 10, 2022. We now track support by 37...

This paper introduces the “Ukraine Support Tracker”, which lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022. We measure support from Western governments, namely by G7 and European Union member countries. Due to our focus...