Chasing the Key Player: A Network Approach to the Myanmar Civil War. (Former Job Market Paper)
Abstract: I show empirically that the alliance network between rebel groups influences the Myanmar government's choice to attack them over the period 1989-2015. The rationale is that the government, attacking a group, also weakens its allies. Therefore, the model predicts that the government targets rebels who are central in the alliance network. The empirical evidence supports the model's predictions, a one standard deviation increase in a group's centrality increases the likelihood of a government's attack by 23 percent over the yearly baseline, thus identifying a new determinant of conflict. I pursue an instrumental variable strategy to show causality of the mechanism.
Horizontal vs Vertical Cultural Transmission of Fertility Preferences Among Second Generation Women in the U.S. Accepted, Journal of Comparative Economics. (WP version).
Abstract: I study the cultural transmission of fertility preferences among second-generation immigrant women observed in U.S. Censuses from 1910 to 1970. As hypothesized by Bisin & Verdier (2001), the transmission of preferences can be ``vertical'' or ``horizontal''. Using a unique source documenting the variation in fertility behavior in Europe before and after the first demographic transition (1830-1970), I unpack the influence of parents (measured by source-country fertility at the time of departure from Europe) versus the influence of peers from the same source-country (measured by fertility of the same-age cohorts living in the source-country and transmitted by same-age recent immigrants). I find that the transmission mechanism is crucially affected by the number of foreign-born immigrant peers living in the same MSA. On one hand, the ``vertical'' channel of transmission is stronger in places where there are few newly arrived foreign-born immigrant couples from the same source-countries. On the other hand, the ``horizontal'' channel prevails in MSAs densely populated by recently arrived immigrants from the same source-countries of second-generation ones.
Peaceful and Violent Power Consolidation: Evidence from Myanmar.
Abstract: This paper studies the process of state formation in Myanmar. Using a newly collected dataset of conflict events and ceasefire deals between the Myanmar army and various armed groups in the country, I study how rebels' characteristics affect the Myanmar army's choice of weakening them peacefully or through military conflict from 1988 onward. In line with the theoretical predictions of Powell (2012, 2013), I find empirical evidence that heterogeneity in armed groups' resources and military ability affect the Myanmar army's consolidation decisions. Namely, groups whose ethnic homeland lacks resources and/or are unable to resist sustained offensives because of their limited military capacity, are more likely to be peacefully absorbed by the Myanmar army. Moreover, peaceful consolidation takes time: only three armed groups out of the forty-seven active in 1988 can be said to be completely disarmed by 2015 while almost twenty of them keep playing a role as militias linked to the Myanmar army.