Dreamscapes of Dubai: Geographies and Genealogies of Global City Status

This dissertation asks how Dubais dream and position as a global city impacts on and is impacted by the experiences of a migrant-majority population; and, simultaneously, how the operation of highly exclusionary citizenship regimes and everyday ideologies work to justify and rationalize social hierarchies. It explores the making of Dubais global, developmental trajectory through a multiplicity of dreams and temporalities as they shape urban landscapes and social hierarchies in the city. Methodologically, it operates through an understanding of the simultaneity of social scales, which allows, in part, for an examination of how the everyday offers insight as a counterpoint to the spectacle of globality. Theoretically I argue that understanding the construction of particular subjectivities created through relational identity formation and processes of Othering based on privilege and exclusion allows for a more complex understanding of the social, political, economic and imaginary realms through which we might challenge social hierarchies and the subsequent violence(s) they engender as somehow natural, inevitable, increasingly acceptable, and at times, necessary in the making of neoliberal globality. It is argued that migration is an integral and foundational aspect of Dubais development and global allure, illustrated by mapping the diverse routes that comprise geographies of migration to the city, while simultaneously unmapping the historical genealogies that accompany migrants on their journeys to the city. Together, these examinations allow us to trace histories of race, nationality, class and gender, operating at different scales, and in different forms and temporalities, to rationalize, normalize, and even, legitimize violent landscapes and hierarchies

Trade Facilitation and Tariff Evasion

This paper investigates the extent to which trade facilitation measures included in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement affect tariff evasion. In a dataset covering 121 countries and the whole set of HS6 product categories in 2012, 2015, and 2017, the paper shows that trade facilitation measures that improve legal certainty for traders moderate tariff evasion. Holding tariff rate constant at its mean, one standard deviation improvement in trade facilitation measures related to legal certainty reduces tariff evasion, as measured by missing imports in trade statistics, by almost 12%. In a counterfactual with full trade liberalization, countries with higher scores on facilitation measures related to legal certainty experience larger reductions in tariff evasion than countries with lower scores on these measures, even for similar initial tariff rates. We investigate potential channels and show that improving legal certainty is effective in reducing tariff evasion due to under-reporting of import prices and under-reporting of import quantities, as well as in countries with weakest control of corruption

Economics of Majoritarian Identity Politics

Majoritarian identity politics has become salient in representative democracies. Why do parties engage in identity politics and what are its consequences? We present a model of electoral competition in which parties capture voter groups based on their identity, and compete over an economic policy platform for the support of non-partisan voters. In addition, the party that caters to majoritarian interests makes a costly investment in polarizing identity. The investment provides subsequent payoffs to voters who have a preference for identity. When voter preferences over policy platforms are idiosyncratic in nature, greater investment in polarizing identity (i) increases both parties’ rents from office; and (ii) marginalizes minority voter interests. Further, the majoritarian party substitutes away from economic policy platforms. This enhances its overall payoffs in equilibrium and decreases that of the non-majoritarian party. We discuss the implications in context of episodes of majoritarianism in India, Turkey, Brazil, and the United States

Economic Shocks and Temple Desecrations in Medieval India

Economic downturns can create conditions for mass uprisings that threaten an authoritarian ruler. Religious authority can provide the ideological force needed to solve the collective action problem that hinders a revolution. When co-option is infeasible, the ruler can respond to economic shocks by suppressing the religious authority of the popular religion. In this paper we provide empirical evidence of this response in medieval India. Using centuries of geo-referenced data we document a positive relationship between weather fluctuations and the destruction of Hindu temples under Muslim rule. Specifically, during periods of large weather fluctuations the likelihood of a Muslim State desecrating a Hindu temple increases by about 1 percentage point (relative to the baseline of 0.7%). We explore various mechanisms that could drive the ruler’s response and show that regime stability is the likely explanation for this relationship. The paper contributes to our understanding of the behaviour of authoritarian regimes in diverse societies

Votes for sale

This paper examines the financial gains derived from holding public office for independent legislators in India. Given that party-affiliated legislators are legally prohibited from engaging in cross-voting or defection, I hypothesize that independent legislators can secure rents when their support becomes pivotal for government formation. Utilizing candidate asset disclosures from Indian state elections spanning 2003 to 2012, I demonstrate that independent legislators amass wealth at a faster pace than their party-affiliated counterparts in states where the largest party or coalition falls short of a majority. The point estimates suggest that, for each additional seat that the largest party or coalition falls short of a majority, an independent legislator experiences an approximate 2% annual increase in their assets relative to a party affiliated legislator. The disproportionate gains are particularly prominent in movable assets, implying a potential quid-pro-quo involving cash payments

Quantitative Autoradiography of [3H]f-Butylbicycloorthobenzoate Binding to the 7-Aminobutyric Acid ReceptorA Complex1

ABSTRACT The GABAA receptor complex is a heterooligomeric protein that is the primary mediator of inhibitory neurotransmission in the central nervous system. GABAA receptors possess mul tiple ligand binding sites, including those for GABA, benzodiazepines, neurosteroids, zinc, avermectins and picrotoxinins The binding of picrotoxinin ligands is regulated by the action of other types of GABAA ligands and this property has made picrotoxinin ligand binding assays an attractive technique for studying GABAA receptor pharmacolog

Shutdown Policies and Worldwide Conflict

We provide real-time evidence on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions policies on conflicts globally. We use daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of coronavirus to study how conflict levels vary following shutdown and lockdown policies. We use the staggered implementation of restriction policies across countries to identify their effect on conflict incidence and intensity. Our results show that imposing a nation-wide shutdown reduces the likelihood of daily conflict by around 9 percentage points. The reduction is driven by a drop in the incidence of battles, protests and violence against civilians. Across actors the decline is significant for conflicts involving political militias, protesters and civilians. We also observe a significant cross-country heterogeneity in the effect of restriction policies on conflict: no conflict reduction is observed in low income countries and in societies more fractionalized along ethnic or religious lines. We discuss the potential channels that can explain this heterogeneity

Reducing tariff evasion : the role of trade facilitation

Available online: 31 January 2022Can simplifying customs procedures reduce tariff evasion? We measure tariff evasion as the mis-representation of import values in response to increasing tariffs. In a dataset covering 121 countries and the whole set of HS6 product categories in 2012, 2015, and 2017, we show that simplifying border procedures, that is trade facilitation, reduces tariff evasion. Holding tariff rate constant at its mean, improving a country’s overall trade facilitation performance from the 25th percentile to the median reduces tariff evasion by almost 20%. The moderating effect is especially due to improving the pre-shipment legal certainty of customs procedures. Among the potential mechanisms, improving trade facilitation performance is effective in reducing tariff evasion due to under-reporting of import prices, as well as in countries with weaker control of corruption. The results suggest that countries can gradually implement trade facilitation reforms to cost-effectively minimize tariff evasion

Global livestock trade and infectious diseases

Large-scale movement of animals through trade can spread diseases to places where they are not endemic. In this paper, we identify the causal effect of global livestock trade on the spread of infectious animal diseases through an exogenous increase in the demand for imported livestock. The instrumental variable approach exploits an increase in halal livestock imports in Muslim countries during Eid-al-Adha to determine the effect of livestock imports on related infections. Using a dataset that covers 123 countries and five livestock categories in the months between 2004 and 2019, we find an imports-to-infections elasticity of about 0.75. The relationship is stronger for countries that are likely to import infected livestock from their partners. There is also evidence that infections spread through interaction between imported livestock, some of which might be infected, and domestic livestock. These results highlight transmission-through-trade from the origin to the destination

Economics of majoritarian identity politics

Majoritarian identity politics has become salient in representative democracies. Why do parties engage in identity politics and what are its consequences? We present a model of electoral competition in which parties capture voter groups based on their identity, and compete over an economic policy platform for the support of nonpartisan voters. In addition, the party that caters to majoritarian interests makes a costly investment in polarizing identity. The investment provides subsequent payoffs to voters who have a preference for identity. When voter preferences over policy platforms are idiosyncratic in nature, greater investment in polarizing identity (i) increases both parties’ rents from office; and (ii) marginalizes minority voter interests. Further, the majoritarian party substitutes away from economic policy platforms. This enhances its overall payoffs in equilibrium and decreases that of the non-majoritarian party. We discuss the implications in context of episodes of majoritarianism in India, Turkey, Brazil, and the United States.We thank the second author’s former affiliation AMSE (Aix-Marseille University), and IRES (Chapman University) for financial support. The paper is part of the project titled “Public Decision and Social Welfare: Efficiency and Distributive Justice”, PY18-2933. All errors are our own