This paper estimates the causal impact of landmines on child health and household expenditures in Angola by exploiting geographical variations in landmine intensity. We generate exogenous variation in landmine intensity using the distance between communes and rebel headquarters. As predicted by...

This paper reconsiders the long term effect of fiscal policy on interest rates using a real-time dataset of macroeconomic and fiscal variables in a panel of 17 OECD countries over the period 1989-2009. We show that, after controlling for cross sectional dependence using a Factor Augmented Panel,...

There has been a long debate about whether speculators are stabilizing or not. We consider a model where speculators have a stabilizing role in normal times, but may also provoke large risk panics. The very feature that makes arbitrageurs liquidity providers in normal times, namely their...

Height-for-age (HA) and weight-for-age (WA) of children are standard measures to study the determinants of stunting and short-term underweight. Rather than studying these indicators separately, this paper looks at their interaction and therefore at the dynamics of height and weight. Considering...

The emergence of the gold standard has for a long time been viewed as inevitable. Fluctuations of the gold-silver exchange rate in world markets were accused to lead to brutal and unsustainable switches of bimetallic countries’ money supplies. However, more recent work has shown that the...

This paper studies the relationship between civil war and HIV/AIDS in Burundi. It contributes to the empirical literature by providing micro level evidence using an identification strategy based on original data on the dynamics of rebel movements. The presence of exit and entry points from and...

Using unique village census data collected in 2003 and 2008 in Senegal, we assess the impact of a major World Bank-funded Community Driven Development (CDD) program on membership and assortative matching in community-based organizations (CBOs). We implement both standard discrete choice and...

This paper looks into aid allocation in the response to multiple crises, focusing more specifically on the cases of concomitance between so-called `natural' hazard/disaster and conflict situations. Over 150 natural disasters have occurred alongside complex political crises in the past seven...

The National Monetary Commission was deeply concerned with importing best practice. One important focus was the connection between the money market and international trade. It was said that Britain’s lead in the market for “acceptances” originating in international trade was the basis of...

In this paper we combine the tariff evasion analysis of Fisman and Wei (2004) with Rauch and Trindade’s (2002) study of Chinese trade networks. Chinese networks are known to act as trade catalysts by enforcing contracts and providing market information. As tariff evasion occurs outside the...