Armed conflict can shape reproductive behaviour as high child mortality and a lack of health services lead to higher fertility rates. Yet women often postpone childbearing in expectation of better times. Given the theoretical ambiguity, the extant empirical evidence is often inconclusive. As a...

Do aid projects affect citizens' motivation to pay taxes? We address this question by combining fine-grained data on aid projects from AidData and survey data from the Afrobarometer for 34 African countries. We first employ a subnational analysis, where the treatment varies by administrative...

Rebuilding state legitimacy is a thorny challenge in the aftermath of civil wars. The international community has stepped in to support post-conflict states in rebuilding state capacity, sometimes replacing governments in providing public goods. Most notably, research shows that UN peacekeepers...

This paper examines how trade sanctions affect the allocation of workers across formal and informal employment. We analyse the case of the unexpected and unprecedented trade sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012. We use a difference-in-differences approach and compare the probability of working in...

Numerous studies demonstrate that terrorism causes strong public reactions immediately after the attack, with important implications for democratic institutions and individual well-being. Yet, are these effects short-lived? We answer this question using a quasi-experimental design and data on...