Tourism and Cross-Border Conflict: An Empirical Analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian Case

How does tourism affect conflict, and how is it affected by conflict and violence? Tourism is often proposed as a way to manage and resolve conflicts, especially those between close neighbors. Drawing on theories of economic cooperation and conflict, and using data from the Israeli-Palestinian case, this paper finds no strong evidence that tourism has a pacifying effect on conflict: regions that host more tourists, and that have a stronger tourism potential, are not more peaceful than other regions. Furthermore, hosting more tourists from the other side of the border does not affect violence. Finally, although tourism is sensitive to violence, this sensitivity is short-term and often conditional on other factors. These findings suggest that we should moderate our expectations about the potential effect of tourism on conflict resolution

Terrorism and Voting: The Effect of Rocket Threat on Voting in Israeli Elections

How does the threat of becoming a victim of terrorism affect voting behavior? Localities in southern Israel have been exposed to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip since 2001. Relying on variation across time and space in the range of rockets, we identify the effect of this threat on voting in Israeli elections. We first show that the evolution of the rockets? range leads to exogenous variation in the threat of terrorism. We then compare voting in national elections within and outside the rockets? range. Our results suggest that the right-wing vote share is 2 to 6 percentage points higher in localities that are within the range?a substantively significant effect. Unlike previous studies that explore the role of actual exposure to terrorism on political preferences and behavior, we show that the mere threat of an attack affects voting

Refugees, xenophobia, and domestic conflict: Evidence from a survey experiment in Turkey

What factors influence attitudes towards refugees? Do negative attitudes towards refugees also influence attitudes towards conflict in the host countries? Previous studies suggest that an influx of refugees, and locals’ reaction to them, may destabilize receiving countries and lead to conflict. In particular, actual or perceived negative effects of refugees’ presence, such as increased economic competition with the locals, disruption of ethnic balance in the host country, and arrival of people with ties to rebel groups may lead to an increased likelihood of civil conflict in countries that receive refugees. These effects can lead to instability by changing the locals’ incentives and opportunities of engaging in violence. Indeed, some studies find a positive correlation at the cross-national level between influx of refugees and conflict in receiving countries. We contribute to this literature by experimentally manipulating information about the externalities of hosting refugees. We conducted a survey-experiment in the summer of 2014 in Turkey, a country that hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees. We examine how different messages about the possible effects of hosting refugees – increased economic burden, disruption of ethnic balance, and ties with rebels, as well as a positive message of saving innocent women and children – affect locals’ perceptions of the refugees and their attitudes towards the Turkish-Kurdish peace process. We find that some messages cause locals, especially majority non-Kurds, to hold more negative views of the refugees, and in some cases to view them as a threat. Generally speaking, this information does not affect support for the peace process within Turkey. Rather, fundamental factors, such as partisanship, and previous exposure to conflict are better predictors of attitudes towards peace

Adaptive Markets and the New World Order

In the adaptive markets hypothesis (AMH) intelligent but fallible investors learn from and adapt to changing economic environments. This implies that markets are not always efficient but are usually competitive and adaptive, varying in their degree of efficiency as the environment and investor population change over time. The AMH has several implications, including the possibility of negative risk premiums, alpha converging to beta, and the importance of macro factors and risk budgeting in asset allocation policies

High frequency statistical arbitrage via the optimal thermal causal path

We consider the problem of identifying similarities and causality relationships in a given set of financial time series data streams. We develop further the “Optimal Thermal Causal Path” method, which is a non-parametric method proposed by Sornette et al. The method considers the mismatch between a given pair of time series in order to identify the expected minimum energy path lead-lag structure between the pair. Traders may find this a useful tool for directional trading, to spot arbitrage opportunities. We add a curvature energy term to the method and we propose an approximation technique to reduce the computational time. We apply the method and approximation technique on various market sectors of NYSE data and extract the highly correlated pairs of time series. We show how traders could exploit arbitrage opportunities by using the method

The Pitfalls of Central Clearing in the Presence of Systematic Risk

Through the lens of market participants' objective to minimize counterparty risk, we provide an explanation for the reluctance to clear derivative trades in the absence of a central clearing obligation. We develop a comprehensive understanding of the benefits and potential pitfalls with respect to a single market participant's counterparty risk exposure when moving from a bilateral to a clearing architecture for derivative markets. Previous studies suggest that central clearing is beneficial for single market participants in the presence of a sufficiently large number of clearing members. We show that three elements can render central clearing harmful for a market participant's counterparty risk exposure regardless of the number of its counterparties: 1) correlation across and within derivative classes (i.e., systematic risk), 2) collateralization of derivative claims, and 3) loss sharing among clearing members. Our results have substantial implications for the design of derivatives markets, and highlight that recent central clearing reforms might not incentivize market participants to clear derivatives

Applying the Strategic Perspective Problems and Models, Workbook (Fifth Edition)

Fully revised and reorganized to fit the new edition of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita?s Principles of International Politics, this accompanying workbook features class-tested, user-friendly exercises that walk students through the building blocks of the strategic method, ensuring that even novice students have the opportunity to develop and hone their problem-solving skills and can successfully apply what they have learned in the text. The book introduces students to a wide range of problems so that they master basic principles as well as test their capabilities with more challenging material