US Deportations & the Spread of Violence

Existing literature on cross-national variation in violence has paid little attention to the transnational transmission of crime. One such channel are the forced returns of migrants with a criminal record in their countries of temporary residence. Responding to this research gap, we study the effect of US deportations of convicts on levels of violent crime in deportees’ countries of origin for a cross-country panel of up to 123 countries covering the years 2003 to 2015. We find a strong and robust effect of criminal deportations on homicide rates in countries of origin, that is to a large degree driven by deportations towards Latin America and the Caribbean. An additional inflow of ten deportees with a criminal history per 100,000 increases expected homicide rates by more than two. In addition to controlling for country-specific fixed effects, we provide evidence on a causal effect using an instrumental variable approach, that exploits spatial and time variation in migrant populations’ exposure to state level immigration policies in the U

Bypass or Engage? Explaining Donor Delivery Tactics

Abstract The conventional wisdom in the literature on aid allocation suggests that donors utilize bilateral aid as a tool to buy influence in the aid-receiving country. Those who conclude that aid is driven by donor self-interest focus on government-to-government aid transfers. However, this approach overlooks important variation in delivery tactics: bilateral donors frequently provide aid to non-state actors. This paper argues that donors resort to delivery tactics that increase the likelihood of aid achieving its intended outcome. In poorly governed recipient countries, donors bypass recipient governments and deliver more aid through non-state actors, all else equal. In recipient countries with higher governance quality, donors engage the government and give more aid through the government-to-government channel. Using OLS and Probit regressions, I find empirical support for this argument. Understanding the determinants of donor delivery tactics has important implications for assessing aid effectiveness

A Two-Step Theory and Test of Democratic Waves *

Abstract Scholars, observing clustering in transitions to democracy, argue that democratization diffuses across borders as citizens in autocracies demand the same reforms they witness in neighboring states. We disagree. The present paper asserts that the diffusion of democracy literature rests on weak theoretical foundations and does not properly test for diffusion. We advance an alternative two-step argument to explain clustering of democratization: (1) economic shocks, which are clustered spatially and temporally, induce the breakdown of authoritarian regimes; then (2) democratic diffusion, in turn, influences whether a fallen dictatorship will be replaced by a democracy or a new autocracy. Diffusion, despite playing an important role, is insufficient to explain the clustering of transitions, notably because it cannot account for the timing of the waves. Using data on 125 autocracies from 1875 to 2004, we show that economic crises trigger authoritarian breakdowns, while diffusion determines whether the new regime is democratic or authoritarian. * Thanks t

Political Parties and Monetary Commitments

We argue that political parties will choose monetary institutions inorder to help them win elections and retain of ce. Increased levels ofeconomic openness in the industrial democracies have complicated thepursuit of of ce by altering the policy preferences of constituents anddecreasing the ability of cabinet ministers to deliver promised economicoutcomes. We contend that monetary commitments can help politicalparties manage diverse constituent interests, restore policyeffectiveness, and, ultimately, maintain their position in of ce.Therefore, we expect that xed exchange rates and central bankindependence can improve cabinet durability, especially under conditionsof economic openness.

The Politics of Speculative Attacks in Industrial Democracies

In the past twenty-five years, the volume of internationalexchange-rate markets has increased exponentially. In 1996, transactionsin these markets totaled well over $1 trillion each day. Consequently,the collective impact of decisions by currency traders can placetremendous pressure on a country s exchange rate. Most famously,speculative attacks on national exchange rates swept across Europe in1992,Mexico in 1994 95, Asia in 1997 98, and Brazil in 1998 99. Butintense speculative activity has not been limited to these periods.Figure 1 graphs the number of country-months in which speculativecurrency attacks occurred in parliamentary democracies from 1970 to1995. Although the greatest number of attacks occurred in 1981, whenmost industrial nations raised their interest rates, and during the 1992EuropeanMonetary System(EMS) crisis, speculative attacks occurredrelatively regularly throughout the period.