in safavid era, ottoman rulers were interested in science and culture, and there were always iranian physicians, astronomers, scholars, artists and poets in their courts. although there were always wars between most ottoman sultans and the safavid kings, they could not prevent iranian culture from influencing that land. at the same time, artists and scholars went to other countries, including t...

In every period, an aggressive country seeks concessions from a non-aggressive country with private information about their cost. The aggressive country can force concessions via war, and both countries suffer from limited commitment. We characterize the efficient sequential equilibria. We show that war is necessary to sustain peace and that temporary wars can emerge because of the coarseness o...

A booming quantitative literature on large-scale political violence has identified important economic and political determinants of civil war. That literature has treated civil war as an aggregate category and has not considered if identity (ethnic/religious) wars have different causes than nonidentity wars. The author argues that this is an important distinction and that identity wars are due ...

The paper relies on a neoclassical growth model to empirically test for the influences of a civil war on steady-state income per capita both at home and in neighboring countries. Moreover, this model provides the basis for measuring long-run and short-run effects of civil wars on income per-capita growth in the host country and its neighbors. Evidence of significant collateral damage on economi...

Does cultural proximity cause wars? This paper argues that it does. A dictator, in fear of losing his position, seeks to eliminate any culturally-similar democracy, or at least its influence. The dictator’s aim is to prevent social learning between the democracy and the dictator’s citizens. Thus, when considering culture and institutions together, the most warprone and the most hostile country ...