This study presents a novel approach to crisis prevention based on data on premonitory political and religious events and the international media coverage of publicly sensitive circumstances. We implement our method to the Israel-Palestine conflict. First we identify two main political scenarios...

This study presents a novel approach to crisis prevention based on data on premonitory political and religious events and the international media coverage of publicly sensitive circumstances. We implement our method to the Israel-Palestine conflict. First we identify two main political scenarios...

Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which are respectively on the left and right side of the island of Hispaniola, represent an interesting case of economic divergence: whereas in colonial times Haiti was richer than the current Dominican Republic, it is now one of the poorest countries in the...

We show the existence of a diffusion process of military dictatorships in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1972 through 2007, using panel data probit estimation and a Markov chain transition model. This process is shortly-lived, since we observe an overall trend that reduces the number of military...

In this paper we empirically analyze the socio-economic determinants of the existence of military dictatorships in Africa. A recent literature in political economy analyses the relationship between the civil undemocratic government and the military as an agency problem: the civilian government...

In this paper we empirically analyze the socio-economic determinants of the existence of military dictatorships in Africa. A recent literature in political economy analyses the relationship between the civil undemocratic government and the military as an agency problem: the civilian government...

In this paper we analyse four determinants of turnout in petition referendums. We find that distributive referendums have higher turnout than efficiency referendums; the higher the percentage obtained by parties campaigning for abstention, the lower turnout. Furthermore, referendums held in June...

While it is recognized that effective state institutions are pivotal for economic development, it is not well understood what their origins are and what explains their cross-country differences. We focus on budget institutions in developing economies, as efficient public finance planning in such...

We evaluate the effect of natural resources on political regimes. We use the synthetic control method to compare evolution of the democracy level of countries affected by giant oil discoveries with the weighted democracy level of countries that do not incur the same event and have similar...

We evaluate the effect of natural resources on political regimes. We use the synthetic control method to compare evolution of the democracy level of countries affected by giant oil discoveries with the weighted democracy level of countries that do not incur the same event and have similar...