This paper re-examines the effect of oil wealth on political violence. Using a unique historical panel dataset of oil discoveries, we show that simply controlling for country fixed effects removes the statistical association between the value of oil reserves and civil war onset. Other macro-political violence measures, such as coup attempts, are also uncorrelated with oil wealth. To further address endogeneity concerns, we exploit changes in oil reserves due to randomness in the success of oil explorations. We find little robust evidence that oil discoveries increase the likelihood of political violence. Rather, oil discoveries increase military spending in nondemocratic countries. (JEL D74, H56, O17, Q34, Q41)

We show that previous results from the body of literature on the resource curse have primarily been driven by the collapse in oil prices during the mid‐1980s. By exploiting cross‐country variations in the size of initial oil endowments and the timing of oil discoveries, we find that there is a stable positive relationship between oil abundance and long‐run economic growth. Using dynamic panel data methods, we also find that there is no evidence that higher oil rents hinder growth. However, to focus on material gain means that the welfare gain from oil is understated, because oil‐rich countries benefit more by the reduction in infant mortality and the gain in longevity. Interestingly, such oil‐led health improvements are more pronounced in non‐democratic countries, where initial heath conditions were poor and oil wealth is concentrated among the ruling elites.

This paper studies the effects of oil rent on development using a unique panel dataset describing worldwide oil discoveries and extractions. First, we revisit the so-called curse of oil, which contends that oil rent hinders economic development. Exploiting cross-country variations in the timing of oil discoveries and the size of initial oil in place, we find that, contrary to the oil-curse hypothesis, there is little robust evidence of a negative relationship between oil endowment and economic performance, even after controlling for initial income. Second, based on both crosscountry and panel evidence, we find a robust association between oil abundance and population growth, which might suggest a Malthusian effect which reduces the economic growth measured in per capita GDP. We find some evidence that oil abundance increases fertility. On an accounting basis, however, migration plays an even more prominent role in explaining the oilinduced population growth. Furthermore, we show that focusing on material gain may understate the welfare gain from oil abundance, because relative to non-oil countries, oil-rich countries gain more in health improvements. These results suggest that despite the positive oil effect on population growth, oil-rich countries do not suffer from the Malthusian trap, and overall oil abundance is an economic blessing rather than a curse.

By reducing the cost of malpractice, tort reforms affect physicians' incentives and treatment choices. However, the prior literature focused on narrowly defined treatments has reached conflicting conclusions about the association between reforms and treatment intensity. This paper evaluates the impact of non-economic damages caps on broadly defined measures of health care delivery in hospitals. Using county level panel data I find that caps adoption leads to a 3.5 percent decrease in surgeries, a 2.5 percent decrease in admissions, a 4.5 percent decrease in outpatient visits but has no significant effect on emergency care. Although there is some evidence of spillover effects from reforms adopted in bordering states, such spillovers are not a significant source of bias. The reduction in hospital utilization rates is not driven by an improvement in health outcomes and there is evidence of an increase in mortality from complications of medical and surgical care two years after the adoption of non-economic damages caps. (JEL: I11, K13) * I am grateful for especially valuable criticism from Michael T. Maloney and Sam Peltzman. Many thanks go to

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