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Working Paper
Battles and Diseases in the U.S. Civil War
Wars create short-term fluctuations in mortality. Belligerents might mitigate their own casualties with larger armies that hinder their opponent’s fighting ability. But diseases are frequent in wars and, thus, may reduce the benefits of larger armies. First, I analyze these competing mechanisms in a dynamic model of wartime attrition. Second, I calibrate the model using U.S. Civil War data and find that if the Union had fielded a 50%-larger army in 1861, Union casualties would have been marginally lower. The theory provides the insight for this quantitative result.
Working Paper
On the Economic Mechanics of Warfare
How do war-related expenditures affect economically-relevant outcomes at a war’s conclusion (e.g., prevailing side, duration, and casualties)? I present a model of attrition and characterize the effects of resources at a military conclusion (one side cannot fight anymore) and a political conclusion (one side quits). I analyze the Pacific War through the lenses of the model both theoretically and empirically. I find that a parsimonious parameterization reproduces well the aggregate patterns of destruction, measured in ship tonnage, for both belligerents.
Working Paper
Voluntary participation in a terror group and counterterrorism policy
A three-stage game investigates how counterterrorism measures are affected by volunteers’ choice in joining a terrorist group. In stage 1, the government chooses both proactive and defensive countermeasures, while looking ahead to the anticipated size and actions of terrorist groups. After radicalized individuals choose whether to join a terrorist group in stage 2, group members then allocate their time between work and terrorist operations. Based on wages and government counterterrorism, the game characterizes the extensive margin determining group size and the intensive margin ...
Working Paper
The economic effects of a potential armed conflict over Taiwan
This article examines the likely economic effects of a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan for the U.S. and the world by considering historical precedents. Such a conflict would likely produce a flight-to-safety in the asset market, huge disruptions in international trade, and banking problems, and it would greatly exacerbate existing fiscal pressures. The authorities of the People’s Republic of China would probably try to sell U.S. and other western securities prior to a conflict to avoid sanctions on those assets. Such sales would be temporarily disruptive but would likely have only ...
Working Paper
Un-Fortunate Sons: Effects of the Vietnam Draft Lottery on the Next Generation's Labor Market
Can shocks to one generation propagate to the next? To answer this question, we study how the Vietnam draft lottery affected the next generation's labor market. Using the universe of federal tax returns, we link fathers from draft cohorts to their sons' outcomes and find that sons of fathers randomly called by the draft 1) have lower earnings and labor force participation than their peers, and 2) are more likely to volunteer for military service. These findings highlight the strong role family plays in human capital development and occupational choice. More generally, our results provide ...
Journal Article
The Trade-Offs of Counterterrorism Policies
This article provides a modern overview of counterterrorism tools and their trade-offs for curbing terrorist attacks and their consequences. Defensive and proactive countermeasures constitute two main classes of counterterror tools deployed by targeted governments. The primary drawback of defensive actions, which make terrorist attacks more costly and less apt to succeed, is attack transference that shifts the mode, venue, or target of attacks to those less protected. In contrast, offensive proactive measures, which confront the terrorists directly, may result in backlash as terrorist ...
Working Paper
Financial market reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
This article analyzes financial market reactions to the Russia-Ukraine war with a focus on the opening weeks. Markets did not completely anticipate the war and asset price reactions strengthened from the first week—when there were hopes for a quick resolution—to the second week, when prices generally peaked and began to partially revert to pre-war values. Exposure to commodity trade and trade with Russia-Ukraine determined market perceptions of the riskiness of equity and foreign exchange assets. Credit default swap prices on sovereign debt and breakeven inflation rates indicate that ...
Journal Article
The Economic Effects of a Potential Armed Conflict Over Taiwan
This article examines the likely economic effects of a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan for the U.S. and the world by considering historical precedents. Such a conflict would likely produce a flight-to-safety in the asset market, huge disruptions in international trade, and banking problems, and it would greatly exacerbate existing fiscal pressures. The authorities of the People’s Republic of China would probably try to sell U.S. and other western securities prior to a conflict to avoid sanctions on those assets. Such sales would be temporarily disruptive but would likely have only ...
Journal Article
The effects of terrorism on trade: a factor supply approach
The conventional view of terrorism is that it raises risks and, as a result, reduces trade. The authors use a factor supply approach to show that this hypothesis is not necessarily correct. They use a two-good, two-factor, small open economy model to show that terrorism can either reduce or raise trade depending on critical factors, such as the impact of terrorism on the intensive factor of the export or the import sector. They then extend the analysis to models with several goods and factors and identify conditions under which trade may rise or fall with a greater incidence of terrorism. ...
Working Paper
Terror Externalities and Trade: An Empirical Analysis
We report robust evidence of adverse cross-border externalities from terrorism on trade for over 160 countries from 1976 to 2014. Terrorism in one country spills over to reduce trade in neighboring nations. These externalities arise from higher trade costs due to trade delays and macroeconomic uncertainty.