Can publicly-funded immunization programs in developing countries be cost-effective? To answer this, we run a large-scale experiment in China to estimate the cost-effectiveness of influenza and pneumococcal vaccines on elderly patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD). Vaccinated patients - relative to the control group - experienced improvements in their COPD condition, which led to a substantial decrease in their medical expenditure (public medical insurance reimbursements and out-of-pocket expenses). Our conservative difference-in-differences estimates imply that every dollar spent making vaccination freely available reduced public medical insurance reimbursements by at least 10 to 33 dollars, and reduced total medical expenditure by 15 to 46 dollars. Comparing across beneficiaries, we find that patients aged 70 and above, those with more severe COPD symptoms, and those residing in rural areas, benefitted the most from immunization. Our results shed light on the long-run viability of public immunization programs, and for whom should immunization be prioritized.

We study how anti-fascist opposition during Mussolini's dictatorship affects postwar support for right-wing parties in Italy. We construct a measure of anti-fascism from the universe of recorded opponents, and use newly digitized historical data to resolve simultaneity between the supply of opposition and the demand for repression, leveraging the random assignment of judges to the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State. Stronger local opposition leads to weaker support for right-wing parties decades later. Our model generates predictions about underlying mechanisms, tested using using data on collective memorialization and parental voting behavior. The main driver is social transmission of political preferences.

This paper examines the effect of political favoritism on economic inequality in the short run and political polarization in the long run. We exploit the sudden death of an authoritarian leader - President Chiang Ching-Kuo of Taiwan - in 1988 to generate plausibly exogenous variation in partiality. We find that Chiang’s nationalist regime conducted political favoritism broadly toward political immigrants via cronyism (allocating public sector positions) and also differentially toward specific subgroups of political immigrants via wage discrimination (offering higher wages to these subgroups within the public sector). Favoritism led to a 7.2 percent immigrant wage premium, which accounted for nearly three quarters of the immigrant-native wage gap at the time. This in turn propelled overall income inequality by 4.5 percent. Moreover, political favoritism breeds political polarization in the long run by pulling apart the political views of immigrants and natives. Compared with natives, immigrants who were exposed to favoritism tend to adopt political positions that are aligned with the nationalist party today: they are more likely to support unification with China, and are more inclined to trust the mainland Chinese government and its citizens. Exposed immigrant (native) swing voters are also more (less) likely to vote for the nationalist party today.

We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine, using a novel panel dataset comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts during 1926–1945. We instrument Jewish-Arab income inequality by combining the annual variation in rainfall shocks with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate crop intensity, to extract exogenous changes in inequality between non-agrarian Jews and agrarian Arabs. We find a substantial effect of inequality on conflict intensification, especially during periods where the relationship between Arabs and Jews were particularly strained. Our estimates are driven by Arab-initiated attacks, reflecting the local average treatment effects of Arab farmers who move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks; in other words, economic shocks coupled with existing economic segregation facilitate the transition into violence when opposing groups are economic substitutes. Further investigations suggest that inequality-driven violence was most likely an expression of resentment, rather than the result of opportunity costs or appropriation.

What is the impact of China's One-Child Policy on the labor market outcomes of the only children that it engendered? This paper quantifies the wage income gap between only children and their peers (i.e. those with siblings), and uncovers the channels that underlie it. While only children receive higher wage income on average, we find that this only-child premium disappears completely once their superior schooling attainment and family background are accounted for. Moreover, we learn that the One-Child Policy resulted in a negative only-child effect on wage income, after conditioning on pre-determined characteristics; this may be due to only children lacking socio-emotional attributes that are valued in the labor market. Our results deliver important insights for China as only children continue to dominate its labor force at a rapid pace.

We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine, using a novel panel dataset comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts during 1926-1945. We instrument Jewish-Arab income inequality by combining the annual variation in rainfall shocks with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate crop intensity, to extract exogenous changes in inequality between non-agrarian Jews and agrarian Arabs. We find a substantial effect of inequality on conflict intensification, especially during periods where the relationship between Arabs and Jews were particularly strained. Our estimates are driven by Arab-initiated attacks, reflecting the local average treatment effects of Arab farmers who move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks; in other words, economic shocks coupled with existing economic segregation facilitate the transition into violence when opposing groups are economic substitutes. Further investigations suggest that inequality-driven violence was most likely an expression of resentment, rather than the result of opportunity costs or appropriation.

While material deprivation is an important determinant of civil conflict, psychological factors can also explain the incentives for warfare. This paper considers whether and to what extent civilian perception of individual economic well-being, possibly influenced by hearts-and-minds tactics that are employed by insurgents, predicts war and peace onset. Using unique micro data bracketing the onset of the Nepalese Civil War, we find that perceived income inadequacy is associated with earlier war onset during periods of rebel recruitment, and with later peace onset in general. These results are mainly driven by the effect of perceived deprivation among marginalised communities on rebel-initiated violence, and hold regardless of whether we account for actual economic circumstance. Our results suggest that civilian perception of economic well-being ought to be considered seriously as a determinant of war and peace.

We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine, using a novel panel dataset comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts during 1926-1945. We instrument Jewish-Arab income inequality by combining annual variation in rainfall with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate crop intensity, to extract exogenous variation in inequality between non-agrarian Jews and agrarian Arabs. We find a substantial e ect of inequality on conflict intensification, especially during periods where the relationship between Arabs and Jews were particularly strained. Our estimates are driven by Arab-initiated attacks, reflecting local average treatment effects of Arab farmers who move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks, suggesting that economic shocks coupled with existing economic segregation facilitate the transition into violence when opposing groups are economic substitutes. Further investigations reveal that inequality-driven violence was not the result of opportunity costs or appropriation, but rather an expression of resentment.

Is education the social leveler it promises to be? Nowhere is this question better addressed than in Singapore, the emblematic modern-day meritocracy where education has long been hailed as the most important ticket to elite status. In particular, what accounts for gender and ethnic gaps in enrollment into Singapore’s elite junior colleges—the key sorters in the country’s education system? We consider how the wealth of neighborhoods has combined with the elite status of schools to affect the social mobility of gender and ethnic groups. Analyzing data from 40 years of junior college yearbooks (1971–2010), we find persistent differences in educational opportunity. Women and Malays have historically experienced inequality in Singapore, and their student routes to becoming elites differ markedly. For female students, attending an elite junior college in a wealthy neighborhood is associated with wealthy neighborhoods that have a disproportionate number of elite girls’ secondary schools that feed into the junior colleges. By contrast, for Malays, not attending an elite junior college in a wealthy neighborhood has more to do with wealthy neighborhoods underrepresenting Malays in demographic composition. Elite families thus now include better educated women as well as men, yet Malays still rarely become better educated elites. These results underscore the need to carefully map the complex associations and mechanisms between gender and ethnic categorizations, the status of schools, and the characteristics of neighborhoods.

We examine the effect of U.S. weapons purchases on political violence in 191 countries during the period 1970–2008. Our identification strategy exploits exogenous shifts in the cost of purchasing U.S. commercial weapons, through a combination of time variation in U.S. inflation and cross-sectional variation in a country's historical frequency of purchases. We find that weapons purchases reduce the likelihood of political repression but increase the likelihood of onset of civil war in purchasing countries. The results suggest that state investment in military capability incites civil war in countries where state repression of an aggrieved opposition would have otherwise prevailed.

We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on conflict intensification in MandatePalestine, using a novel panel dataset comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensityacross 18 districts during 1926-1945. We instrument Jewish-Arab income inequality bycombining annual variation in rainfall shocks with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate cropintensity, to extract exogenous changes in inequality between non-agrarian Jews and agrarianArabs. We find a substantial effect of inequality on conflict intensification, especially during periodswhere the relationship between Arabs and Jews were particularly strained. Our estimatesare driven by Arab-initiated attacks, reflecting the local average treatment effects of Arab farmerswho move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks; in otherwords, economic shocks coupled with existing economic segregation facilitate the transitioninto violence when opposing groups are economic substitutes. Further investigationssuggest that inequality-driven violence was most likely an expression of resentment, ratherthan the result of opportunity costs or appropriation.

Economic RecordVolume 93, Issue 301 p. 333-334 Review The Economics of Conflict: Theory and Empirical Evidence, by Karl Wärneryd ( MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014), pp. 304. Eik Leong Swee, Eik Leong Swee University of MelbourneSearch for more papers by this author Eik Leong Swee, Eik Leong Swee University of MelbourneSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 June 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4932.12346Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume93, Issue301June 2017Pages 333-334 RelatedInformation

The prevalence of civil warsand the massive human and economic costs that they imposehas attracted the attention of many scholars, including economists. This article briefly introduces three strands in the economics literature on civil warcauses, consequences and solutionsand identifies potential gaps in the existing literature which may be useful to students who are keen on pursuing further research on the subject.

With mixed messages coming from the US President-elect, his likely economic impact is unclear.

This paper identifies war intensity effects of the 1992–1995 Bosnian War on schooling attainment, and explores possible channels of influence. Empirical identification relies on spatial variation in war intensity and variation in birth cohorts. I find that cohorts that endured greater war intensity are less likely to complete secondary schooling but not primary schooling. These effects are much stronger for males than for females, and draftee male cohorts experience deterioration in their physical and mental health relative to female and non-draftee cohorts, suggesting that the military draft may play an important role. Other possible mechanisms do not seem to matter.

This paper uses a historical natural experiment – the opening of the Suez Canal – to investigate the relationship between geography and the formation of institutions. While the conventional view is that good geography (commodity endowment) inevitably favours the creation of extractive institutions, we discover that a second aspect of geography – location – may in fact encourage the establishment of non-extractive institutions when rent extraction by elites depends on the productivity of non-elites. Specifically, we find that entrepôt colonies (Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements) received larger public investments in the post-Suez period than resource colonies (British India, Ceylon, and West Africa), after accounting for year effects and permanent differences across colonies. We demonstrate, using supplementary data, that the entrepôt colonies' locational advantage, coupled with their lack of extractable resources, plays a key role in explaining our empirical findings.

This paper uses a historical natural experiment – the opening of the Suez Canal – to investigate the relationship between geography and the formation of institutions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we posit that colonisers may in fact build non-extractive institutions in wellendowed colonies, if their ability to extract rents depends on the productivity of the non-elite native population. We test this hypothesis by examining one aspect of geography – location – using historical data on nineteenth-century British possessions. Our results indicate that while these colonies were geographically positioned to benefit from the post-Suez trade-led economic expansion, entrepôt colonies (Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements) received larger public investments, in education, for example, than resource colonies (British India and Ceylon), which points to a peculiar case of non-exploitative rent-extraction. We demonstrate, using supplementary data, that our findings are driven by commodity endowments and not other possible confounders. †We thank Hannah Corcoran, Ka Mun Ho, Wen Xin Lim, and Emmy Perez, for excellent research assistance, and participants at the Australian Cliometrics Workshop for comments that improved an earlier version of this paper. We are grateful to Latika Chaudhary for suggesting useful data sources. We acknowledge financial support from the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne. ∗Corresponding author. Department of Economics, FBE Building Level 4, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. Tel: +61-383445397. Fax: +61-383446899. E-mail: eswee@unimelb.edu.au.

The partitioning of political jurisdictions is becoming an increasingly common component of agreements to end ethnic conflict, although its impact on post-conflict recovery remains unclear. This paper studies the effects of the partition which ended the 1992–1995 Bosnian War on the post-war provision of public schooling. I find that partitioned municipalities provide 58% more primary schools and 37% more teachers (per capita). Driven mainly by convergent preferences for ethnically oriented schools, however, this arrangement delivers distributional consequences: in partitioned municipalities, ethnic majority children are more likely to complete primary schooling, while for ethnic minority children it is the opposite.

The extensive coverage of household surveys in conflict regions in recent decades has fueled a growing literature on the microeconomic effects of war. In this paper, we use a unique panel dataset to quantify the impact of the Nepalese civil conflict on schooling attainment. Given longitudinal data, we are able to directly estimate unobserved individual heterogeneity and thus address selective wartime displacement. Despite the widely-held view that war is detrimental to human capital formation, we find no effect of war intensity on schooling attainment once unobserved individual heterogeneity is accounted for. We draw on supplementary data to explain our findings.