We propose a simple model of distribution of economic activity across cities of endogenous size and number determined by individual incentives in the tradition of threshold models of social interaction. The individuals populating our model are endowed with idiosyncratic entrepreneurial...

The energy transition increases the demand for minerals from ethnically diverse, conflict-prone developing countries. We study whether and where mining is possible in such countries without raising the risk of civil conflict. We proceed in three steps: First, we propose a theoretical model to...

We define and axiomatically characterize an index of ethnic stratification that measures the extent to which the hierarchy in socio-economic positions across the individuals of a society follows ethnolinguistic lines. This index generalizes the idea of between-group inequality to situations...

The effects of ethnic geography, i.e., the distribution of ethnic groups across space, on economic, political and social outcomes are not well understood. We develop a novel index of ethnic segregation that takes both ethnic and spatial distances between individuals into account. Importantly, we...

During the past two centuries, western nations have successively extended the voting franchise to citizens of lower income. We explain this process of democratization as a rational way for incumbent elites to wage war effectively on other nations, as in a strategic game of international conflict...

We define and axiomatically characterize an index of ethnic stratification that measures the extent to which the hierarchy in socio-economic positions across the individuals of a society follows ethnolinguistic lines. This index generalizes the idea of between-group inequality to situations...

The energy transition increases the demand for minerals from ethnically diverse, conflict-prone developing countries. We study whether and where mining is possible in such countries without raising the risk of civil conflict. We proceed in three steps: First, we propose a theoretical model to...

We model competition on a credence market governed by an imperfect label, signaling high quality, as a rank-order tournament between firms. In this market interaction, asymmetric firms jointly and competitively control the underlying quality ranking's precision by releasing individual...

We revisit the classical result that financing a pure public good through taxation of private consumption is inefficient. To this standard setup we add a consumption contest in which consumers can win a prize. We show that an appropriately chosen contest - which we call a 'tax lottery' - can...

We analyse procurement auctions in which sellers are distinguished on the basis of the ratios of quality per unit of money that they offer. Sellers are privately informed on the offered quality of the technology or good. We assume that the procurer cannot perfectly identify the best offer. Thus,...