Publications
Does Improved Tenure Security Reduce Fires? Evidence from the Greece Land Registry (with Huiqian Song) Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2024
An Individual Evolutionary Learning Model Meets Cournot (with Jasmina Arifovic, and Nobuyuki Hanaki) Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2025
Working papers
Weak Institutions and Native-Settler Violence on the American Frontier (with Douglas Allen and Warren Anderson) Submitted. Presented at CEA 2025, EHA 2025, ENS 2025, ESWC 2025
Attention to violent conflicts on the U.S. frontier typically centers on the Plains Wars. However, a comprehensive novel dataset covering more than 200 tribes in 21 states reveals that Native American and settler deaths were concentrated in the Southwest between 1840 and 1870. Exploiting exogenous arrival times shows that conflicts were mostly driven by small groups of settlers in counties where state capacity was absent, ceased when state institutions arrived, and had fewer deaths when the tribe involved had strong hierarchical organization and military strength. These findings underscore the role of strong institutions and effective governance in reducing violence.
Collective Defense by Common Property: the Rise and Fall of the Kibbutz (Revision Requested at Journal of Comparative Economics)
Presented at University of Haifa, Aix-Marseille University, SIOE, IOEA
Despite the increasing prevalence of armed conicts, there is limited understanding of how individuals secure their lives under external threats. This paper addresses this gap by examining the impact of armed conicts on the income privatization of kibbutzim in Israel. Originally equal-sharing settlements, kibbutzim have started paying differential salaries to members. A model is developed, arguing that equal-sharing enhances collective defense in conflict environments, whereas income privatization occurs as external threats diminish. Using rainfall at nearby refugee camps, instrumental variable estimates show that local conicts explain most of the variation in the timing of income privatization.
This paper examines the role of land rights and related institutions in coping with heat damage in agriculture. Leveraging the staggered 2011-2019 rollout land registry reform in Greece, we show that farmers receiving the registry offset most of the heat damage on crop yields. This pattern fully aligns with our theory indicating that more secure land rights shift farmers’ heat adaptation strategies from enlarging croplands to increasing other inputs (e.g., capital, labor, irrigation), ultimately reducing heat damage on yields. Our preferred estimates indicate that, indeed, farmers without the new registry respond to an additional degree day above 28°C by enlarging croplands from 0.2-0.4 percent, while farmers with the registry do not adjust along this margin. Conversely, farmers with the new registry increase their use of labor and irrigation by 0.7 and 0.2 percent per degree day respectively, while farmers without do not adjust along these inputs. In total, the reform is projected to offset at least two thirds of the agricultural productivity losses expected by 2100 in Greece, underlying the crucial role of institutions in reducing the costs of climate change by facilitating producers' adaptation.
Work in Progress:
Measuring Defense Capacities: A Terrain Based Approach
Tenure Security, Resources Reallocation, and Agricultural Productivity in Greece
Preventing Arson by Land Mapping: Evidence from Greece Forest Cadastre