' persistent characteristics, such as their institutions. Among our findings are that macroeconomic policies affect development …

, academic performance, health status, volume of market transactions, religion, sexual orientation, etc. However, these forms of … such as race, gender, or ethnicity is much less acceptable. Why? I develop a simple rent-seeking model of conflict which is …

capture conservative or progressive values in addition to the cultural characteristics language and religion. Catholic … sociocultural characteristics qualifies the role of religion for educational production. The evidence suggests that Catholicism is …

I critically review recent studies that estimate those costs of violence and conflict that can emerge among organized … of organized conflict and violence are aggregated. …

We examine two factors that help explain the prevalence of conflict in low-income countries: that adversaries cannot … enforce long-term contracts in arms, and that open conflict alters the future strategic positions of the adversaries … sustain short-term contracts even though doing so is Pareto superior to open conflict. Conflict arises because adversaries …

induce commoners to identify with the nation. The more commoners identify with the nation, the less is conflict between …

In many instances of potential violent or non-violent conflict the future strategic positions of adversaries are very … different when there is open conflict than when there is settlement. In such environments we show that, as the future becomes … more important, open conflict becomes more likely than settlement. We demonstrate the theoretical robustness of this …