We use new data on the timing of the transition to agriculture, developed by Putterman and Trainor (2006), to test the theory of Diamond (1997) and Olsson and Hibbs (2005) that an earlier transition is reflected in higher incomes today. Our results confirm the theory, even after controlling for...

We investigate the determinants of onset, duration and incidence of civil wars, and their sensitivity to different coding rules. Whatever the coding rule used, incidence of civil war is largely determined by poverty, country size, mountainous terrain and ethnic diversity. Poverty reduces the...

Using data from 1980 to 2004, we show that greater fiscal policy volatility acts as a transmission mechanism for the "resource curse". Resource exports dominate political and institutional variables as determinants of fiscal policy volatility, with fiscal policy volatility being a significant...