Using global data for the period 1960-99, the authors estimate neighborhood arms races. They find that the level of military expenditure is strongly influenced by the expenditure of neighbors. The authors estimate an"arms race multiplier,"finding that an initial exogenous increase in military...

Deliberate killing is a common part of the defining features of both homicide and civil war. Often, the scale of killing is also similar: most countries have homicide rates that exceed the threshold of one thousand combat-related deaths during a year that is the standard criterion for civil war....

Civil war is the most prevalent form of large-scale violence and is massively destructive to life, society, and the economy. The prevention of civil war is therefore a key priority for international attention. We present an empirical analysis of what makes countries prone to civil war. Using a...

We revisit Lipset‘s law, which posits a positive and significant relationship between income and democracy. Using dynamic and heterogeneous panel data estimation techniques, we find a significant and negative relationship between income and democracy: higher/lower incomes per capita...

Africa experienced a wave of democratization over the past 20 years and this increase in democracy, we find, positively and significantly affects income per capita. Our dynamic panel data results suggest that countries only slowly converge to their long-run income values as predicted by current...

type="main" xml:id="obes12054-abs-0001" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>In mature democracies, elections discipline leaders to deliver good economic performance. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, most developing countries also hold elections, but these are often marred by illicit tactics. Using a new global data...</p>

This article sets flight capital in the context of portfolio choice, focusing on the proportion of private wealth that is held abroad. There are large regional differences in this proportion, ranging from 5 percent in South Asia to 40 percent in Africa. The authors explain cross-country...