Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jones, Benjamin F.; Olken, Benjamin A.
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.1.2.55
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 55-87
• 关键词: income; DEMOCRACY

摘要

Assassinations are a persistent feature of the political landscape. Using a new dataset of assassination attempts on all world leaders from 1875 to 2004, we exploit inherent randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify the effects of assassination. We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy. We also find that assassinations affect the intensity of small-scale conflicts. The results document a contemporary source of institutional change, inform theories of conflict, and show that small sources of randomness can have a pronounced effect on history. (JEL D72, N40, O17)