Economics

C ontrary to popular opinion, the number of armed conflicts has been in decline in recent years: about 30 ongoing conflicts per year nowadays compared to about 50 conflicts per year during the Cold War era. The probability of being killed in war is also at its lowest since World War II. However, these trends hide the 1 dramatic variations of war-related deaths across countries and conflict types. This article seeks to explain cross-country variations in conflict casualties by examining how battlefield deaths are related to military expenditure per soldier, political regime type, conscription, economic freedom, human capital, per capita GDP, and various geographic variables. The empirical estimates presented here provide an intuitive insight into how democracy, conscription, economic freedom, and other factors affect battlefield deaths and the value of life in military conflicts. The article departs from previous studies on this topic by proposing a more rigorous specification of the endogenous channel through which political regimes, conscription, and other factors may affect conflict casualties. This channel is military capital intensity (measured as military expenditure per soldier), and it can be used to estimate the value of a statistical life that can be saved by providing soldiers with more military capital. The findings indicate that more politically and economically free societies place a higher value on life, manifested in better equipped military forces. As a result, such societies suffer fewer casualties in military conflicts. In addition, it is found that societies with higher levels of education, per capita GDP, and volunteer armies suffer fewer casualties. The estimates are consistent with some of the previous findings in the literature and emphasize the importance of controlling for endogeneity bias in the empirical models of conflict.

This paper examines how the incumbency advantage is related to ideological voting or legislative shirking that causes the incumbents to diverge from the preference of the median voter using aggregate data for the U.S. House of Representatives between 1948 and 2000. I find that a rise in the incumbency advantage manifested in higher reelection rates increases the ideological divergence or polarization the U.S. House of Representatives. I also find that the average number of bills per congressman falls with greater ideological polarization. These findings suggest that ideological and non-ideological shirking rise with the incumbent reelection rate.

With the aging trend reaching new heights, retirees are becoming increasingly important for state and local economies. Although retirees pose challenges for state and local governments, they have been increasingly targeted as a group to enhance economic development in communities. With rapid increases in the number of retirees, understanding the economics of retirees is critical. This paper addresses the economic impact of current and potential new retirees in West Virginia by examining the economic significance of retirees and their role in public policy with a focus on a comparison with other states. This chapter presents evidence that retirees are important to state and local development and that they could be a potential source for future growth. It also points to certain potential risks involved in retiree attraction policies. 1. This paper is based on a study partially funded by the Bernard McDonough Foundation in Parkersburg, West Virginia. We dedicate it to the memory of Mark Kury, former president of the Bernard McDonough Foundation. We thank him with all our hearts for his help in our research and his vision to enhance economic development in West Virginia. 2

This paper uses both static and dynamic warfare profit maximization framework for analyzing the value of life in military conflicts for dictatorships and democracies with volunteer or conscription armies. Modeling conflicting parties as profit maximizing firms allows for formal theoretical insights into how economic and institutional factors may affect the optimal capital intensity of military forces, corresponding combat casualties, and value (scarcity) of life. The dynamic extension of the model allows for analyzing whether or not dictatorships and democracies differ in their optimal choice of conflict intensity and duration. The empirical estimates presented here support the model's conclusions that democracy decreases and conscription increases combat casualties. Moreover, there seems to be a weak but intriguing evidence that democracies might prefer relatively longer and less intensive wars compared to dictatorships.

This dissertation is a collection of essays on the issues in political and defense economics. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the role that political and institutional arrangements play in affecting government policy and economic well-being. The second chapter examines how different political regimes and military manpower systems affect the value of life in military conflicts. The results in Chapter 2 show that democracies suffer lower battlefield casualties than dictatorships. Also noteworthy is that more volunteer based armies, per capita income, and economic freedom lead to lower battlefield deaths. Thus, political and economic liberties are found to increase the value of life in military conflicts. Chapter 3 investigates how arms trade and military spending affect economic growth. The results indicate that higher military spending and net arms exports lead, separately, to lower economic growth, but higher military spending appears to be less detrimental to growth when a country is a large net arms exporter. The fourth chapter examines the relationship between incumbency advantage and legislative shirking or ideology. The results indicate that the incumbency advantage leads to more legislative shirking as evidenced by the departure of politicians from the median voter's ideological preferences. Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of the dissertation, provides concluding remarks, and discusses opportunities for future research in the political economy of warfare.

The rise of the Industrial Revolution is often depicted as a cause of hazardous working conditions and is skillfully epitomized in William Blake's tale of a child chimney sweeper. Conventional wisdom puts firm profit in conflict with occupational safety. We reexamine this argument noting that injuries are very costly to firms because they lead to higher wage premiums, worker compensation, and costly work stoppages. We hypothesize that it is precisely for these reasons that firms in the industries with dangerous working conditions have the strongest incentives to innovate and substitute more capital for labor. Using a longitudinal panel of U.S. industries, we test and confirm our hypothesis that higher injury rates lead to higher capital stock per worker, over time. Moreover, our estimates suggest that firms provide more capital and equipment per worker than what would have been there based solely on the compensating wage differential.

In 2007, Travel Leisure magazine conducted a survey of 60,000 people who were asked to score a number of U.S. cities in several broad categories such as culture, cityscape, people, cuisine, shopping, entertainment, and many others. This paper investigates whether peoples' perceptions of various city traits can be systematically linked to economic, demographic, and geographic factors that can shape city image. We find numerous statistically significant correlations between perceived city attributes in various categories and city facts from the Census Bureau. Some of our findings appear very intuitive, but some are rather surprising. For instance, demographic and racial groups often exhibit statistically significant coefficients that may vary dramatically across groups or regressions.

Sažetak The principal-agent problem and uncertainty are some of the key factors affecting financial and political markets. Fear of the unknown plays an important role in human decision making, including voting. This article describes a theoretical model where voter risk aversion towards uncertainty gives political incumbents a significant advantage over their challengers, exacerbating the principal-agent problem between voters and legislators.

This journal raises and debates all issues related to the political economy of personal, communal, national, international, and global peace and security. The scope includes implications and ramifications of conventional and nonconventional conflict for all human and nonhuman life and for our common habitat. Special attention is paid to constructive proposals for conflict resolution and peacemaking.

Establishing Broward County as a world-class tourism and business destination requires unique, high quality, and affordable infrastructure developments and tourism attractions. Achieving this vision presents Broward County with unique financial challenges and opportunities. Strong population growth provides Broward County with a rare opportunity to effectively finance (with mainly consumption-based taxes) development projects, while being able to export some of the tax burdens to nonresidents.