Showing 1 - 10 of 444
We present the first attempt to construct a long-run historical measure of subjective wellbeing using language corpora from millions of digitized books for the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. While existing measures go back at most to the 1970s, our measure goes back at least 200...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011480489
We present the first attempt to construct a long-run historical measure of subjective wellbeing using language corpora from millions of digitized books for the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. While existing measures go back at most to the 1970s, our measure goes back at least 200...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011476047
We assess how one of the largest public works programmes in the world-Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP)-affected violent conflict and civil unrest. Using difference-in-differences methods and linking administrative and geocoded conflict event data, we find that the PSNP did not...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10015209750
The difficulty in resurrecting inter-ethnic cooperation in the aftermath of violence and genocide is one of the biggest challenges facing post-conflict societies. Using experimental data from post-genocide Rwanda and Burundi, this paper shows that an unwarranted tendency to blame others for...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013353466
This paper analyzes whether the propensity to secede by subnational regions responds mostly to differences in income per capita or to distinct identities. We explore this question in a quantitative political economy model where people's willingness to finance a public good depends on their...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013426419
We study how NAFTA changed the geography of violence in Mexico. We propose that this open border policy increased trafficking profits of Mexican cartels, resulting in violent competition among them. We test this hypothesis by comparing changes in drug-related homicides after NAFTA's introduction...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013427767
This paper overviews theoretical and empirical contributions that study political borders from an economic perspective. It reviews theories of the number and size of nations focused on the trade-off between economies of scale in public-good provision and heterogeneity of preferences over public...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014290075
Conflict undermines development, while poverty, in turn, breeds conflict. Policy interventions such as cash transfers could lower engagement in conflict by raising poor households' welfare and productivity. However, cash transfers may also trigger appropriation or looting of cash or assets. The...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014290187
How does the memory of lives lost in past wars shape communities and the next generation of soldiers? We use newly collected geolocated data on British servicemen to study the legacy of the Great War mortality shock on local communities and the behaviour of soldiers in WW2. We find that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014290208
Early in their formation, modern nation-states face internal conflicts that impede their economic development. This paper examines the role of national identity in helping modern states overcome such conflicts to provide public goods and grow. We develop a model in which the population can...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014290268