This paper examines the corporate governance mechanisms in Sri Lanka, a country that only a little more than a decade ago emerged from a 30-year long civil war. We focus on the evolution of Sri Lanka’s corporate governance from historical, sociocultural, and institutional perspectives. Taking...

France sent five thousand men to fight alongside George Washington's army in the American Revolutionary War. We show that the French combatants' exposure to the United States of America increased support for the French Revolution a decade later. French regions (départements) from which more...

Can weakened religiosity lead to the rise of totalitarianism? The Nazi Party set itself up as a political religion, emphasizing redemption, sacrifice, rituals, and communal spirit. This had a major impact on its success: Where the Christian Church only had shallow roots, the Nazis received...

We study how anti-fascism during Mussolini's dictatorship in Italy affects support for right-wing parties at 1948-2022 democratic elections. Using newly-digitized historical data, we construct a measure of anti-fascism from the universe of recorded regime opponents, and we resolve simultaneity...

This paper examines the link between historical political fragmentation and surplus agricultural production, and the impact of natural endowments with regards to crop suitability. I show that in Africa, groups that cultivated tubers were more likely to have higher local political fragmentation....