Motivated by a novel stylized fact -- countries with isolated capital cities display worse quality of governance -- we provide a framework of endogenous institutional choice based on the idea that elites are constrained by the threat of rebellion, and that this threat is rendered less effective...

This paper studies empirically the impact of mining on conflicts in Africa. Using novel data, we combine geo-referenced information over the 1997-2010 period on the location and characteristics of violent events and mining extraction of 27 minerals. Working with a grid covering all African...

In October the current turmoil in Russia’s international relations palpably stagnated. At the same time, Russia’s economic-political scene displayed alarming portents of future troubles in her business environment: it is not an exaggeration to say that, in October, Russia found herself on...

We consider rules (strategies, commitments, contracts, or computer programs) that make behavior contingent on an opponent’s rule. The set of perfectly observable rules is not well defined. Previous contributions avoid this problem by restricting the rules deemed admissible. We instead limit...

Recent insights from the ‘embodied cognition’ perspective in cognitive science, supported by neural research, provide a basis for a ‘methodological interactionism’ that transcends both the methodological individualism of economics and the methodological collectivism of (some) sociology,...

In this paper we study the effects of providing additional feedback about individual contributions and earnings on the dynamics of contributions in a repeated public good game. We include treatments where subjects can freely choose whether to obtain additional information about individual...

We use a novel experimental design to examine the role of reputational concerns in explaining conditional cooperation in social dilemmas. By using the strategy method in a repeated sequential prisoners’ dilemma in which the probabilistic end is known, we can distinguish between strategically...

Mediation is a conflict resolution method in which a third neutral party provides assistance to the conflict parties.The process of mediation as well as any solution to the conflict arising from it is implemented only by the consent of all conflict parties.It is the role of a mediator to...

We isolate strategic and non-strategic motivations of sanctioning in a repeated public goods game. In two experimental treatments, subjects play the public goods game with the possibility to sanction others. In the STANDARD sanctions treatment, each subject learns about the sanctions received in...