Published Papers

Robinson, James A., and Sripad Motiram. "Interlinking and Collusion." Review of Development Economics 14, no. 2 (2010): 282-301. AbstractReviewPublished.pdf
In this paper, we suggest a new rationale for the existence of interlinked contracts in the agrarian economies of developing countries. Using the framework of an infinitely repeated game with discounting, we show that interlinked contracts can help the dominant parties to collude, in cases where collusion is not possible with noninterlinked contracts. This occurs because either interlinkage pools incentive constraints across markets, or it affects the incentives of agents to accept deviating contracts. We illustrate these mechanisms by considering the case of interlinkage between markets for credit and share tenancy. The model that is used to formalize the second mechanism is characterized by frictions in the tenancy market, which we model using the standard framework of search and matching.
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. "Why is Africa Poor?" Economic History of Developing Regions 25, no. 1 June 2010 (2010): 21-50 . Abstractjr_africanpoverty.pdf
In this paper we take for granted that the poverty of Sub-Saharan Africa is to a large part explained by its political and economic institutions. As citizens Africans do not have the incentives to save and invest, as politicians they do not have the incentive to provide public goods. We focus on the issue of how Africa developed such institutions. Historically, no society had the types of institutions required for modern economic growth, though a few had elements of them for quite long periods. Growth arose when institutional transitions took place. We argue that the historical dynamics of institutions in Africa have been different. Processes of state formation seem to have been delayed relative to Eurasia, and state institutions appear to have been intensely absolutist and patrimonial. These initial institutions interacted in a perverse way with a series of shocks that hit Africa, in particular the slave trade in the early modern period, and colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Africa countries emerged at independence with a complex path dependent set of institutions that were probably even worse than those which they had at the time of colonization. It was these that precipitated authoritarianism, sustained economic decline and reinforced the poverty we see in Africa today.
Besley, Timothy, and James A. Robinson. "Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Civilian Control over the Military." Journal of the European Economic Association 8 , no. 2-3 (2010): 655-663. Abstractjr_militarypolitics.pdf
The question of who guards the guards is intimately connected with broader questions of state capacity and the establishment of a monopoly of violence in society, something which is often viewed as the defining feature of the modern state. But to establish such a monopoly, civilian rulers need not only to build an effective military, but also to control it. In this paper we study how governments may solve this problem when they recognize that their decisions to build a strong army may have ramifications for subsequent coups.
Mazzuca, Sebastian L., and James A. Robinson. "Political Conflict and Power Sharing in the Origins of Modern Colombia." Hispanic American Historical Review 89, no. 2 (2009): 285-321.jr_colombia.pdf
Robinson, James A., and Jonathan H. Conning. "Enclaves and Development: An Empirical Assessment." Studies in Comparative International Development 44 (2009): 359-385. Abstractjr_enclaves_development.pdf
In this paper we investigate empirically whether or not the notion of an enclave adds substantially to existing knowledge of the determinants of long-run economic, political, or institutional development. We discuss the prominent place of enclaves in historical accounts in the dependent development literature, particularly in the work of Cardoso and Faletto (1966, 1979) and the large difficulties of determining in practice whether or not a country was or was not an enclave. We find little evidence for a relationship between past enclave status and long-run growth, inequality, or the size of the government. However, there does seem to be some preliminary evidence that countries that were enclaves have greater state capacity than non-enclaves and have been less democratic in the post-WWII period.
Robinson, James A., and Ragnar Torvik. "A political economy theory of the soft budget constraint." European Economic Review 53 (2009): 786-798. Abstractjr_EER_polecon_softbudget.pdf
Why do soft budget constraints exist and persist? In this paper we argue that the prevalence of soft budget constraints can be best explained by the political desirability of softness. We develop an infinite horizon political economy model where neither democratic nor autocratic politicians can commit to policies that are not ex post optimal. We show that because of the dynamic commitment problem inherent in the soft budget constraint, politicians can in essence commit to make transfers to entrepreneurs which otherwise they would not be able to do. This encourages such entrepreneurs to support them politically. Though the soft budget constraint may induce economic inefficiency, it may be politically rational because it influences the probability of political survival. In consequence, even when information is complete, politicians may fund bad projects which they anticipate they will have to bail out in the future. We show that, maybe somewhat surprisingly, dictators who are less likely to lose power, are more likely to use the soft budget constraint as a strategy to gain political support.
Robinson, James A., and Ragnar Torvik. "The Real Swing Voter's Curse." American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 99, no. 2 (2009): 310-315.jr_AERswingvoter.pdf
Robinson, James A., Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and Pierre Yared. "Reevaluating the Modernization Hypothesis." Journal of Monetary Economics 56 (2009): 1043-1058. AbstractJMEPublished.pdf
We revisit and critically reevaluate the widely accepted modernization hypothesis which claims that per capita income causes the creation and the consolidation of democracy. Existing studies find support for this hypothesis because they fail to control for the presence of omitted variables. Controlling for these factors either by including country fixed effects in a linear model or by including parameterized random effects in a nonlinear double hazard model removes the correlation between income and the likelihood of transitions to and from democratic regimes. In addition, the estimated fixed effects from the linear model are related to historical factors that affect both the level of income per capita and the likelihood of democracy in a country. This evidence is consistent with the idea that events during critical historical junctures can lead to divergent political–economic development paths, some leading to prosperity and democracy, others to relative poverty and non-democracy.