This study analyzes how state capacity shapes the local impact of national policies by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment in the regional expansion of the state. It uses the local discontinuity created by the boundary of the largest peasant rebellion in 18th century Russia where the state...

This study explores the impact of industrialization on secondary schooling in 19th century France. As a source of exogenous variation in industrialization across the French territory, it takes advantage of the openings and closures of mines which were supervised by the Ministry of Public Works,...

The economic theory of defense has traditionally described public safety as achieved through investments that deter adversaries. Deterrence is however ineffective, and preemptive defense is required, when a population of intended victims confronts supreme-value suicide terror. A moral dilemma...

The least squares estimation method as well as other ordinary estimation method for regression models can be severely affected by a small number of outliers, thus providing poor out-of-sample forecasts. This paper suggests a robust regression approach,based on the S-estimation method, to...

Between 1994 and 2004, New York State voters returned a Republican governor but always cast a majority of the popular vote in favor of the Democratic candidate in the presidential election. This paper exploits those elections in an effort to understand voters' motivations to switch party...

Between 1994 and 2004, New York State voters returned a Republican governor but always cast a majority of the popular vote in favor of the Democratic candidate in the presidential election. This paper exploits those elections in an effort to understand voters' motivations to switch party...