Colonial powers typically organized economic activity in the colonies to maximize their economic returns. While the literature has emphasized long-run negative economic impacts via institutional quality, the changes in economic organization implemented to spur production historically could also directly influence economic organization in the...

Drug traffickers sometimes divide profits via peaceful agreement. Other times they fight. We propose a model to investigate this variation, focusing on the state’s effort to enforce prohibition. Seizing illegal goods generally increases trafficker profits, and higher profits fuel violence. Killing kingpins makes crime bosses short-sighted,...

We provide a novel rationale for why extreme forecasts are often more persuasive than moderate ones. We show that when people look for the most likely explanation of the views or opinions they observe, they will adopt an explanation according to which moderate views are just statistical derivatives of extreme views.

This paper studies the effects of local political concentration on long-run economic development in Brazil. Contrary to what is observed in other contexts and time periods, we document that municipalities with higher levels of political concentration prior to Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985) achieved higher levels of development in...