Current empirical growth models limit the determinants of country growth to geographic, economic, and institutional variables. This study draws on conflict variables from the Correlates of War (COW) project to ask a critical question: How do different types of conflict affect country growth...

We use a new machine learning-enabled, social network based measurement technique to assemble a novel dataset of firms' political connections in India. Leveraging this data along with a long panel of detailed financial transactions of firms, we study how political connections matter during an...

This paper investigates the effects of financial development and political instability on economic growth in a power-ARCH framework with data for Argentina from 1896 to 2000. Our findings suggest that (i) informal or unanticipated political instability (e.g., guerrilla warfare) has a direct...

What are the main causes of international terrorism? The lessons from the surge of academic research that followed 9/11 remain elusive. The careful investigation of the relative roles of economic and political conditions did little to change the fact that existing econometric estimates diverge...

What is the relationship between economic growth and its volatility? Does political instability affect growth directly or indirectly, through volatility? This paper tries to answer such questions using a power-ARCH framework with annual time series data for Argentina from 1896 to 2000. We show...

We study the effect of exposure to political instability in-utero on health at birth. We exploit the coup d'état that took place in Spain on February 23, 1981. Although short-lived and unsuccessful, the event generated stress and fear among the population, especially in areas that had suffered...