This paper exploits data on the pattern of violence across regions and over time to estimate the impact of the peace process in Northern Ireland on house prices. We begin with a linear model that estimates the average treatment effect of a conflictrelated killing on house prices - showing a...

European colonialism had two key economic aspects: the extraction of colonial wealth by colonizers, and the relevance of trade for colonial economies. I build a simple model of colonialism which puts these two elements at centre stage. By controlling policy in the colony, the colonizer can...

We consider cross-sectional data that exhibit no spatial correla- tion, but are feared to be spatially dependent. We demonstrate that a spatial version of the stochastic volatility model of financial econometrics, entailing a form of spatial autoregression, can explain such behaviour. The...

In a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are already taken. Therefore, the...

Disregarding spatial dependence can invalidate methods for analyzing cross-sectional and panel data. We discuss ongoing work on developing methods that allow for, test for, or estimate, spatial dependence. Much of the stress is on nonparametric and semiparametric methods

The central limit theorem for nonparametric kernel estimates of a smooth trend, with linearly-generated errors, indicates asymptotic independence and homoscedasticity across fixed points, irrespective of whether disturbances have short memory, long memory, or antipersistence. However, the...

We find an economic rationale for the common sense answer to the question in our title courts should not always enforce what the contracting parties write. We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. An active court can improve on the outcome that...

We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. The model we analyze is the same as in Anderlini, Felli, and Postlewaite (2006). An active court can improve on the outcome that the parties would achieve without it. The institutional role of the court is...

One of the most striking institutional features of many less developed countries is that their militaries are closely involved in policy-making, potentially having a large impact on economic outcomes. This paper examines the role of the military in setting policy. For this purpose it develops...