What distinguishes post-war governments that succeed in establishing a stable political order and prevent recurring conflict from those that do not? This comparative study considers the specific threats that typically lead to the collapse of the post-conflict political order to offer new hypotheses on the conditions that affect post-war governments’ ability to sustainably restore stability. The threats considered include (i) fragmentation of the main actors in the conflict, (ii) inadequate demobilization, and (iii) enduring dependence of the post-war government on local brokers. Post-war regimes are more vulnerable to such risks after wars in which the dominant armed groups have established themselves by co-opting local power structures and drawing on existing socio-political networks, as this process redistributes power from the central to the local level. Empirically, this paper uses a novel dataset documenting the practices through which rebel groups may alter local power structures to highlight the connection between this wartime process of transformation and patterns of conflict recurrence. In addition, it contrasts the transition of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front from rebellion to government in Ethiopia in the 1990s with the trajectory of the armed movements in Somalia that also overthrew the incumbent military regime but then failed to establish a viable state.

Despite the good intentions behind affirmative action policies to mediate ‘horizontal inequalities’ between ethnic groups, the evidence on their effectiveness remains open to debate. In this study, we conduct a systematic review of the literature with global scope, to add new clarity on whether positive or negative effects prevail according to the available quantitative evidence and the strength and generalizability of this evidence. Overall, close to two-thirds of the 194 reviewed studies find a dominantly positive effect. However, three limiting factors condition this aggregate assessment. First, while affirmative action generally improves the numerical representation of target groups, the qualitative implications of these policies are more ambiguous. Second, the concentration of the evidence on a limited set of country cases may distort our perception of the effectiveness of affirmative action. Third, causal evidence on the impact of affirmative action is generally scarce and studies applying quasi-experimental research methods generally arrive at a more positive assessment than studies applying less rigorous methods. Supplementary material Online Appendix

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries enacted tax and social protection measures to help mitigate the economic hardship faced by individuals and households. This experience underscores the need to better understand the impact of such programmes on incomes and poverty during crises, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where they are most needed. This paper reviews existing empirical literature on the subject, conducting a scoping review on quantitative studies published between 2000 and 2022. Following a structured selection approach, we identify 38 studies about the role of social protection and taxation in LMICs during periods of crisis. The results reveal that LMICs often enact both vertical and horizontal expansions of existing unconditional cash transfer schemes during crises, although the applications vary by geography. Our research also suggests a sharp increase in recent studies because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a large variety of methods used to study the subject. In terms of effects, social protection can help cushion households against crises, but the effect size depends on the policy adopted, country context, and type of crisis. The minimal empirical evidence about tax policy studies do not enable us to draw conclusions.

Banks impose a variety of account fees, and credit card issuers impose a variety of fees related to card usage. Using detailed data from a 2021 representative diary survey of US consumers, we investigate whether lower-income consumers and Black consumers are more likely to pay bank account or credit card fees, and how payment behavior varies depending on paying such fees. We find that the probability of paying several types of bank account and credit card fees is correlated with consumers' demographic attributes and payment behavior. The percentage of Black consumers who pay overdraft or low-balance fees on their bank accounts or pay late fees or cash-advance fees on their credit cards is higher than the percentage of White consumers who pay those fees. We find that lower-income consumers were significantly more likely to pay overdraft fees, and Black consumers were significantly more likely to pay any bank account fee when we hold income and account balances constant in the regressions. However, when controlling for income, we find that the race effect was smaller than in the summary statistics.

There is substantial empirical literature on the impact of climate vulnerability on economic outcomes in developing countries. However, this literature is still weak on the impact of climate vulnerability on tax revenue mobilization. To enrich the existing literature, this paper aims to investigate the effects of climate vulnerability on government revenue mobilization in a sample of 84 developing countries over the period 1995-2019. To achieve this objective, we use the pooled ordinary least square and fixed-effects ordinary least square regressor techniques as developed by Driscoll and Kraay (1998). We obtain three main results. First, climate vulnerability hampers government revenue mobilization in developing countries. Indeed, a variation of 1 per cent in the level of climate vulnerability induces a decrease in government revenues of 0.63 points. Second, climate vulnerability has different impacts on each type of government tax revenue. Regarding the subcomponents of tax revenue (direct and indirect tax), the results confirm the harmful effect of climate vulnerability on all these subcomponents. Furthermore, it appears that direct taxes are the most compromised in terms of magnitude. Third, this effect does not change when climate vulnerability is disaggregated (exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity). However, the climate sensitivity index has a significantly greater effect than the other two. Finally, by applying quantile regression and the two-step system generalized method of moments to control, respectively, distributional heterogeneity and the potential endogenous problem, we also find that climate vulnerability hampers government revenue mobilization in developing countries. These results suggest recommendations relative to the implementation of measures meant to improve the resilience of people to climate change and natural disasters.

Why do people support—or refrain from supporting—nonviolent protests for political change? The literature offers different answers to this question, but one variable that has received little attention is fears of protest unleashing violent conflict. This is surprising given that protest movements often emerge in insecure societies—from Iraq to Pakistan and Algeria to Myanmar—that have experienced or are at risk of experiencing large-scale civil strife. We argue that conflict fears can be an impediment to people backing nonviolent protest movements in insecure places, making them seen as risky propositions that ‘rock the boat’ and destabilize the country. We investigate this argument using an original survey conducted in Iraq during the ‘Tishreen’ uprising of 2019–21 and a cross-national analysis of civil war and nonviolent resistance from 1945–2013. The results support our argument, suggesting that scholars and practitioners need to pay more attention to how fears of conflict and movements for change are interlinked in world politics.

Do sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) contribute to Africa’s development? This paper assesses the objectives of SWFs (fiscal stabilization, productive investment, intergenerational saving) and discusses alternatives. We argue that fiscal stabilization funds are often necessary, but entail considerable opportunity costs. In the absence of a strong framework of multilateral financial assistance that would reduce ‘self-insurance’ needs, paying down sovereign debt during times of revenue windfalls may constitute a better option as the cost of debt servicing usually exceeds the rate of return on financial investments. Investing in human capital and infrastructure has higher developmental returns than the returns on financial assets in intergenerational SWFs. Capitalizing development funds or national development banks to fund productive investments for long term structural transformation, provided they have clear mandates and strong governance, may also be preferable to intergenerational SWFs.

I study the impact of school consolidation on enrolment and achievement, using its staggered roll-out in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Across the years 2014, 2016, and 2017, Rajasthan merged many of its grade 1–5 schools with grade 6–10 schools to create grade 1–10 ‘model’ schools. Twenty-three per cent of government schools were eliminated in this education reform. Media reports suggested that consolidation led to declining enrolment levels and teacher lay-offs. Combining the government orders on consolidation and administrative data on schools, I rule-out that consolidation had a negative impact on enrolment or number of teachers. I find that consolidation decreased the number of schools in a village by one, increased the proportion of children studying in a school with a principal by 0.1, and increased the number of teachers in a village by 0.7. I also find that consolidation increased school enrolment in a village by 2 per cent—in particular, girls’ enrolment increased by 2 per cent. I further show that consolidation decreased the proportion of high scorers among grade 5 students by 0.08 and did not decrease the proportion of high scorers among grade 8 students by more than 0.02. School consolidation is a policy worth pursuing in contexts that are concerned about a large number of schools.

This study investigates the short-term impacts of an aggregate socioeconomic shock on household food consumption and children’s nutrition using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique. In response to the economic downturn, households are expected to adjust their food choices both in terms of quality, towards cheaper and unhealthier food, and quantity, reducing diet diversification and increasing the exposure to malnutrition, mainly for children. Empirical evidence on such immediate effects is still scarce, mainly due to a lack of data. This paper aims to fill the evidence gap by relying on household survey data from 2019–20, which includes a detailed consumption module and anthropometric measures for children under five. We use a repeated cross-sectional econometric analysis to look at the variation in household food consumption and child nutrition before and after the pandemic. The results show that there has been a significant reduction in household food consumption and per capita caloric intake and an increase in stunting, especially among newborn children.

In a bid to realize its development aspirations, Tanzania has made concerted efforts to increase public investment, particularly in the last decade. A significant proportion of these investments are financed by contracting debt, manifested by the rapid accumulation of public debt, especially external debt, with a notable rise in debt-servicing obligations. In view of these developments, this study sought to investigate the relationship between public debt and investment in Tanzania. The empirical analysis was conducted using the autoregressive distributed lag estimation approach based on data for the period 1976–2020. The results show that an increase in external debt has a positive impact of boosting public investment. However, the lagged effect of external debt accumulation is negative in the long run. Arguably, this could be attributable to the need to service and repay the debt which, depending on the cost of debt servicing, limits the net resources available for additional investment. Thus, it is of essence to ensure optimal use of resources by prioritizing and enhancing efficiency of public investment. Additionally, other avenues of funding such as public–private partnerships and financial market development could be explored to reduce dependence on external debt.