While it is generally recognized that electoral competition can have a major influence on public spending decisions, there has been little effort to consider whether the move to multiparty elections in African countries in recent years has led to a redistribution of public expenditures between...

In this article, we argue that the effectiveness of central bank independence and exchange-rate pegs in solving credibility problems is contingent on two factors: political institutions and information asymmetries. However, the impact of these two factors differs. We argue that the presence of...

When central banks are transparent about their decision making, there may be clear benefits in terms of credibility, policy effectiveness, and improved democratic accountability. While recent literature has focused on all of these advantages of transparency, in this paper we consider one...

We investigate how technology has influenced the size of armies. During the nineteenth century the development of the railroad made it possible to field and support mass armies, significantly increasing the observed size of military forces. During the late twentieth century further advances in...

This paper examines to what extent the central bank for the West African Economic and Monetary Union (BCEAO) has used interest rate policy in response to domestic economic developments. We show that while in the long run the BCEAO matches changes in French (Eurozone) interest rates one for one,...

While it is generally recognized that electoral competition can have a major influence on public spending decisions, there has been little effort to consider whether the move to multiparty elections in African countries in recent years has led to a redistribution of public expenditures between...

We provide the first systematic examination of the determinants of military mobilization over the very long run. Focusing on a sample of thirteen great powers between 1600 and 2000 we argue that changes in transport and communications technology were the single most important factor in both...