168 research outputs found
Persistence of civil wars
No full textA notable feature of post-World War II civil wars is their very long average duration. We provide a theory of the persistence of civil wars. The civilian government can successfully defeat rebellious factions only by creating a relatively strong army. In weakly-institutionalized polities this opens the way for excessive in?uence or coups by the military. Civilian governments whose rents are largely una¤ected by civil wars then choose small and weak armies that are incapable of ending insurrections. Our framework also shows that when civilian governments need to take more decisive action against rebels, they may be forced to build over-sized armies, beyond the size necessary for ?ghting the insurrection, as a commitment to not reforming the military in the future.National Science Fundation (U.S.
Replication package for: Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth
No full textThe zipped folder contains all the files need to replicate the results reported in the paper “Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth” by Roland Bénabou, Davide Ticchi, and Andrea Vindigni, published in the Review of Economic Studies
Emergence and persistence of inefficient states
No full textWe present a theory of the emergence and persistence of inefficient states based on patronage politics. The society consists of rich and poor. The rich are initially in power, but expect to transition to democracy, which will choose redistributive policies. Taxation requires the employment of bureaucrats. By choosing an inefficient state structure, the rich may be able to use patronage and capture democratic politics, so reducing the amount of redistribution in democracy. Moreover, the inefficient state creates its own constituency and tends to persist over time. Intuitively, an inefficient state structure creates more rents for bureaucrats than would an efficient one. When the poor come to power in democracy, they will reform the structure of the state to make it more efficient so that higher taxes can be collected at lower cost and with lower rents for bureaucrats. Anticipating this, when the society starts out with an inefficient organization of the state, bureaucrats support the rich, who set lower taxes but also provide rents to bureaucrats. We obtain that the rich–bureaucrats coalition may also expand the size of bureaucracy excessively so as to generate enough political support. The model shows that an equilibrium with an inefficient state is more likely to arise when there is greater income inequality, when bureaucratic rents take intermediate values, and when individuals are sufficiently forward-lookin
Religion and innovation
No full textIn earlier work (Bénabou, Ticchi and Vindigni 2013) we uncovered a robust negative
association between religiosity and patents per capita, holding across countries as well as
US states, with and without controls. In this paper we turn to the individual level, examining
the relationship between religiosity and a broad set of pro‐ or anti‐innovation attitudes in all
five waves of the World Values Survey (1980 to 2005). We thus relate eleven indicators of
individual openness to innovation, broadly defined (e.g., attitudes toward science and
technology, new versus old ideas, change, risk taking, personal agency, imagination and
independence in children) to five different measures of religiosity, including beliefs and
attendance. We control for all standard socio‐demographics as well as country, year and
denomination fixed effects. Across the fifty‐two estimated specifications, greater religiosity
is almost uniformly and very significantly associated to less favorable views of innovation
An Economic Theory of Constitutional Choice
No full textVerfassung, Wahlsystem, Politische Partei, Einkommensverteilung, Constitution, Electoral system, Political party, Income distribution
Endogenous Constitutions
No full textWe present a theory of the choice of alternative democratic constitutions, a majoritarian or a consensual one, in an unequal society. We show that a consensual system turns out to be preferred by society when "ex ante" income inequality is relatively low, while a majoritarian system is chosen when income inequality is relatively high. We also find that consensual democracies should be expected to be ruled more often by centre-left coalitions while the right should have an advantage in majoritarian constitutions. The implications for the relationship between inequality and redistribution are discussed. Historical evidence and a cross-sectional analysis support our results. Copyright � The Author(s). Journal compilation � Royal Economic Society 2009.
Warfare, Taxation, and Political Change: Evidence from the Italian Risorgimento
No full textWe examine the relationships between warfare, taxation, and political change in the context of the political unification of the Italian peninsula. Using a comprehensive new database, we argue that external and internal threat environments had significant implications for the demand for military strength, which in turn had important ramifications for fiscal policy and the likelihood of constitutional reform and related improvements in the provision of non-military public services. Our analytic narrative complements recent theoretical and econometric works about state capacity. By emphasizing public finances, we also uncover novel insights about the forces underlying state formation in Italy
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