Crime and the durability of goods are strongly connected issues. However, surprisingly, they have been studied separately. This paper explores the relationship between the production of durable goods and crime from a theoretical perspective and draws important conclusions for both topics. Crime...

Why did the most prosperous colonies in the British Empire mount a rebellion? Even more puzzling, why didn't the British agree to have American representation in Parliament and quickly settle the dispute peacefully? At first glance, it would appear that a deal could have been reached to share...

We analyzed two conditional cash transfers experiments that preceded Honduran presidential elections in 2001 and 2013. In the first, smaller transfers had no effects on voter turnout or incumbent vote share. In the second, larger transfers increased turnout and incumbent share in similar...

In the last years, several countries implemented policy interventions to entitle urban squatters, encouraged by the results of studies showing large welfare gains from entitlement. We study a natural experiment in the allocation of land titles to very poor families in a suburban area of Buenos...

This paper develops a model of the geographic distribution of crime in an urban area. When the police protect some neighborhoods (concentrated protection), the city becomes segregated. When the police are evenly deployed across the city (dispersed protection), an integrated city emerges. Unequal...

The literature on aid and growth has not found a convincing instrumental variable to identify the causal effects of aid. This paper exploits an instrumental variable based on the fact that since 1987, eligibility for aid from the International Development Association (IDA) has been based partly...

Two types of political conflicts of interest pervade many of the world's societies. A horizontal conflict of interest arises when different constituencies support different policies, while a vertical conflict of interest emerges when those in charge of running the government acquire and retain...

We explore the political economy of trade and labor mobility in a Ricardian world. We combine a Ricardian economy with a simple international political economy model as a basis for the determination of trade and labor mobility policies. We show that free trade can induce partial convergence,...

Different countries have been following different reform paths since the early 1990s. We develop a simple dynamic model of policy reform that captures some of the determinants that underlie these differences. The model emphasizes the interaction between domestic institutions and international...

Subjective well-being may not improve in step with increases in material well-being due to hedonic adaptation, a psychological process that attenuates the long-term emotional impact of a favorable or unfavorable change in circumstances, such that people's happiness eventually returns to a stable...