Military expenditure shares significantly affect the relationship between the risk of civil conflict outbreak and natural resources. We show that a significant positive correlation between the risk of civil conflict outbreak and resource rents is limited to countries with low military...

Intro -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- A Note on Transliteration, Names, and Translation -- A Note on the Relative Value of Money Then and Now -- Prologue: The Patrimony of Imperial Russia -- Introduction to Bolshevik Gold: The Nature of a Forgotten Problem -- I. The Heist -- 1. The Banks...

We build a model of conflict in which two groups contest a resource and must decide on the optimal allocation of labor between fighting and productive activities. In this setting, a diaspora emanating from one of the two groups can get actively involved in the conflict by transferring financial...