The Economics of Coercive Institutions, Conflict, and Development

Abstract

This dissertation is a compilation of three papers that put together my research interests on the effects of institutions on development outcomes with inequality as the connecting thread.

The first chapter concerns racial inequality. It explores the role of a fundamental part of American history that could have shaped the large racial disparities in the justice system -the slave-based labor system that prevailed in the United States until 1865. The second chapter studies the effects of conflict on social cohesion. In the final chapter, we propose a measure labor income risk that is mapped to inequality measures.