We provide evidence about the mechanisms linking resource-related income shocks to conflict. Combining temporal variation in international drug prices with spatial variation in the suitability to produce opium, we show that higher drug prices reduce conflict over the 2002-2014 period in...

We provide new evidence about the mechanisms linking resource-related income shocks to conflict. To do so, we combine temporal variation in international drug prices with new data on spatial variation in opium suitability to examine the effect of opium profitability on conflict in Afghanistan....

Credit rating agencies are frequently criticized for producing biased sovereign ratings. This article discusses how the home country of rating agencies could affect rating decisions as a result of political economy influences and cultural distance. Using data from nine agencies based in six...

Aid fragmentation is widely recognized as being detrimental to development outcomes. We re-investigate the impact of fragmentation on aid effectiveness in the context of growth, bureaucratic policy, and education, focusing on a number of conceptually different indicators of fragmentation, and...

We analyse whether there is a relationship between EU Commissioners’ national origin and political outcomes. For this purpose, we argue that examining the Commissioner for Agriculture allows the most precise empirical identification: there is a specific budget for agriculture which accounts...

We develop a model of the incentives faced by members of parliament (MPs) when deciding whether to engage in effort for their constituencies to assess the effects of their having a criminal background. Political representatives with criminal backgrounds are considered a great problem in many...

We investigate the effects of short-term political motivations on the effectiveness of foreign aid. Donor countries ́political motives might reduce the effectiveness of conditionality, channel aid to inferior projects or affect the way aid is spent in other ways, reduce the aid bureaucracyś...