We argue that the academic literature, both qualitative and quantitative, has mislabeled most episodes of large-scale violence in Africa as civil wars; these episodes better fit our concept of regional war complexes. Our paper seeks to highlight the fundamental flaws in the conception of civil...

Despite interesting work on infectious diseases by such economists as Peter Francis, Michael Kremer, and Tomas Philipson, the literature does not set out the general structure of externalities involved in the prevention, and care of such diseases. The authors identify two kinds of externality....