This paper analyzes data from a survey of ex-combatants in Liberia conducted in 2006 by Pugel (2006. 2007), with the goal of determining the effect that Liberia’s Demobilization, Disarmament, Rehabilitation and Reintegration program had on participants’ income and chances of finding...

This paper analyzes data from a survey of ex-combatants in Liberia conducted in 2006 by Pugel (2006. 2007), with the goal of determining the effect that Liberia’s Demobilization, Disarmament, Rehabilitation and Reintegration program had on participants’ income and chances of finding...

This paper suggests that societies exhibiting a large degree of educational polarization among its populace are systematically more likely to slip into civil conflict and civil war. Intuitively, political preferences and beliefs of highly educated citizens are likely to differ fundamentally from...

Exposure to violent conflict increases prosocial behavior, which is a form of social capital or informal institutions. This article studies whether these changes to informal institutions map into change to formal institutions, and if this mapping is characterized by substitutability or...

Using a novel cross-country panel dataset, we show that commodity terms of trade declines cause civil war in countries with intermediate ethnic diversity. The civil war effects for highly diverse or homogenous societies are negative and insignificant. Since the size of the largest ethnic group...

Leading theories of institutional and economic development emphasize the role of informal norms and the strength of civil society. Though informal norms and civil society are usually thought to change incrementally, exposure to violent conflict may shock these institutions. Well identified...

Exploiting a natural experiment and an innovative survey design, we study the social and political legacies of armed conflict exposure (ACE) among Turkish conscripts. Our empirical framework identifies the causal impact and isolates the mediating pathways for the average male randomly picked...

We aim at understanding the triggers of electoral violence, which spoiled 80% of elections in Africa during the last decades. We focus on Burundi, a country which experienced polls in 2010, only few months after the end of a long-lasting civil war. Our results suggest that higher polarization...

We aim at understanding the triggers of electoral violence, which spoiled 80% ofelections in Africa during the last decades. We focus on Burundi, a country wherepolls were organized in 2010, only few months after the end of a long-lasting civilwar. We find that an acute polarization between...

This paper suggests that societies exhibiting a large degree of educational polarization among its populace are systematically more likely to slip into civil conflict and civil war. Intuitively, political preferences and beliefs of highly educated citizens are likely to differ fundamentally from...