The thesis encompasses three chapters which provide policy-relevant insights into the domain of conflict economics. The research endeavour goes deep into exploring the underlying linkages of varied economic and non-economic factors (e.g., culture, religion and myriads of ethnic …
This dissertation aims at providing new insights into the possible role of history, institutions, and culture in shaping modern patterns of economic development. It consists of three core empirical studies. The first study (co-authored with Aldo Musacchio and Nidhiya Menon) expl…
The three essays of this dissertation focus on the period of the American Westward expansion. The first essay, co-authored with Ross Mattheis, examines the impact of the 1862 Homestead Act on long-run development. We establish that areas with greater historical exposure to homes…
Strong private property rights to land are recognised as fundamental to the economic growth of a country's legal system. Legal reform of inadequate and inefficient property rights laws is therefore essential. My thesis aims to address the lack of legal reform of the laws governi…
Dayanağını Anayasa’dan alan kent planlama, imar yasası ile ayrıntılı olarak düzenlenmiştir. Ülkemizde planlama faaliyetleri imar yasası uyarınca yapılmaktadır. Zemin etüdü vb. bilimsel nesnel yaklaşımlara dayanmayan ve halkın katılımı ile kararlaştırılmayan plan uygulamaları sos…
Is it possible for a corporation to own a color? This dissertation shows the surprising answer to be yes as it traces color’s assimilation into the intellectual property regime over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with the invention of synthetic dye production …
Most models of property rights assume they are supplied by the state on demand from society. Property rights are strong when state institutions enforce the law. The strength of state institutions in the provinces determines how well property rights will be enforced on the ground…
This qualitative phenomenological study investigated Akan widows' lived experiences of widowhood, widowhood rites, violations against their property rights and the protective resources they employ to survive. The dissertation also explored how the widows make meaning out of thei…
This dissertation argues that solving the internal displacement problem is crucial for building peace, and any solution to the problem of internal displacement must include institutionalized property rights for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Granting property rights to IDP…
Scholars in such disparate fields as philosophy, economics, and political science argue that a system of well-defined property rights is a key factor in economic development and subsequently political stability and security. Despite significant theoretical and empirical support …
Understanding how human beings constitute order to affect productive ways of life is one of the central concerns of scholars. This study examines why three Yoruba communities of Nigeria---Ile-Ife, Ibadan and Abeokuta---differ in the extent to which their diverse groups of Yoruba…
Yemen is a water scarce country. Like many other developing countries, it is constrained by a lack of natural resources and finds it difficult to secure sufficient water for human consumption and for agricultural irrigation. This raises the question of how to design actions and …
This dissertation asks how agrarian institutions in Egypt changed through the political transition from the Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BCE) to Roman rule. Agrarian institutions are central because they constitute the basic structure that determines economic behavior in an agraria…
The first essay of the dissertation assesses the relationship between foreign financial aid and recipients' aggregate investment. Plagued by a difficult endogeneity problem, the literature has grappled with identifying instrumental variables that are uncorrelated with economic a…
Institutions play a pivotal role in the process of economic development. This collection of studies addresses the importance of institutions in the process of wealth creation for low-income households in Brazil, as well as commodity market developments in Ethiopia. In Brazil, la…
By looking carefully at one Supreme Court case and the historical context surrounding it, I argue that between ca. 1910 and 1941—when the Court decided United States, as Guardian of the Hualpi Indians of Arizona, v. Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Co. (314 U.S. 339)—an intellectual an…
The per capita food output for domestic consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa is in crisis. A debate now rages in the political economy of the region's agricultural development over the following questions: Are the indigenous land tenure systems the root cause of the crisis? Is land…