How do nationalistic media affect animosity between ethnic groups? We consider one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts since WWII: the Serbo-Croatian conflict. We show that, after a decade of peace, cross-border nationalistic Serbian radio triggers ethnic hatred towards Serbs in Croatia. Mostly...

The optimal degree of decentralization depends on the importance of inter-state externalities of local policies. We show that inter-state externalities are determined by the spatial distribution of interest groups within the country. Interest groups who have multi-state scope internalize...

This paper investigates how the institutional structure of the government affects the incentives of local governments to provide public goods both to individuals and private businesses. Using a unique data set on budgets of Russian cities, I show that the existing revenue sharing schemes between...

We test the premise of the theoretical literature that M-form political hierarchies are effective in creating yardstick competition between regional divisions only when divisions have sufficiently diversified or similar industrial composition. The reason is that the competition among...

This paper has four goals. The first, and perhaps the most important, is to provide a new compilation of data on ethnic, linguistic and religious composition at the sub-national level for a large number of countries. This data set allows us to measure segregation of different ethnic, religious...

A 2006 survey of 28,000 individuals in 28 post-communist countries reveals overwhelming support for revising privatization, but also that most respondents prefer to leave firms in private hands. We test three theories of support for reform by examining who wants to revise privatization and why....

How do the media affect public support for democratic institutions in a fragile democracy? What role do they play in a dictatorial regime? We study these questions in the context of Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. During the democratic period, when the Weimar government introduced pro-government...

Does fiscal decentralization lead to more efficient governance, better public goods, and higher economic growth? This paper tests Riker''s theory (1964) that the results of fiscal decentralization depend on the level of countries'' political centralization. We analyze crosssection and panel data...

We study horizontal between-group cultural transmission using a unique historical experiment. During WWII, Stalin deported over 2 million people---mostly Germans and Chechens---to Siberia and Central Asia solely based on their ethnicity. As a result, the native population of the deportation...