Alberto Alesina

TL;DR: This paper analyzed the relationship between economics and politics and concluded that inequality is conducive to the adoption of growth-retarding policies, and presented cross-country evidence consistent with it. But their analysis focused on how an economy's initial configuration of resources shapes the political struggle for income and wealth distribution, and how that, in turn, affects long run growth.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model that links heterogeneity of preferences across ethnic groups in a city to the amount and type of public goods the city supplies, and conclude that ethnic conflict is an important determinant of local public finances.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify a channel for an inverse relationship between income inequality and growth, and measure socio-political instability with indices which capture the occurrence of more or less violent phenomena of political unrest.

TL;DR: The authors found that the direction of foreign aid is dictated by political and strategic considerations, much more than by the economic needs and policy performance of the recipients, and that countries that democratize receive more aid, ceteris paribus.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a model that links heterogeneity of preferences across ethnic groups in a city to the amount and type of public goods the city supplies, showing that the shares of spending on productive public goods - education, roads, sewers, and trash pickup - in U.S. cities (metro areas/urban counties) are inversely related to the city's ethnic fragmentation.