On the Ends of the State: Stationary Bandits and the Time Horizon in Eastern Congo / Soeren J. Henn, Christian Mastaki Mugaruka, Miguel Ortiz, Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra, David Qihang Wu.

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Henn, Soeren J

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w28631.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: We show that armed actors refrain from using their power to arbitrarily steal from an economy if, and only if, the armed actors' property rights over stealing from that economy are secure. By 2009, armed actors taxed, administered, and protected various villages in Democratic Republic of the Congo. We exploit the timing and targeting of an international military operation that permanently made taxing these villages impossible. Following the operation, these armed actors turned to violently expropriating the same villages. The findings suggest that the security of property rights over stealing, hence the stealing horizon, can sustain, or destroy, economic growth.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w28631 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

April 2021.

We show that armed actors refrain from using their power to arbitrarily steal from an economy if, and only if, the armed actors' property rights over stealing from that economy are secure. By 2009, armed actors taxed, administered, and protected various villages in Democratic Republic of the Congo. We exploit the timing and targeting of an international military operation that permanently made taxing these villages impossible. Following the operation, these armed actors turned to violently expropriating the same villages. The findings suggest that the security of property rights over stealing, hence the stealing horizon, can sustain, or destroy, economic growth.