Ryan S. Jablonski

The Political Economy of Plunder: Economic Opportunity and Modern Piracy

Maritime piracy is a growing scourge on the international community—imposing large costs on maritime states and the shipping industry, as well as potentially undermining state capacity and funding terrorism. Using original data on over 3,000 pirate attacks, the authors argue that these attacks are, in part, a response to poor labor market opportunities. To establish this, the authors take advantage of the strong effect of commodity prices on labor market opportunities in piracy-prone states. Consistent with this theory, the authors show that changes in the price of labor- and capital-intensive commodities have consistent and strong effects on the number of pirate attacks in a country’s territorial waters each month. The authors confirm these results by instrumenting for commodity prices using monthly precipitation levels.

SMS texts on corruption help Ugandan voters hold elected councillors accountable at the polls

Significance Text messages providing salient, nonpartisan, official information on budget corruption prompted Ugandan voters to take the performance of some politicians into account when voting. Holding politicians accountable via elections is a fundamental precursor to effective governance, economic development, and high-quality public services. The results indicate that communication technologies can combine with data on budget management to help voters make better informed choices at the polls and thus have the potential to enhance local electoral accountability by providing information that is difficult for politicians to control and manipulate. Many politicians manipulate information to prevent voters from holding them accountable; however, mobile text messages may make it easier for nongovernmental organizations to credibly share information on official corruption that is difficult for politicians to counter directly. We test the potential for texts on budget management to improve democratic accountability by conducting a large (n = 16,083) randomized controlled trial during the 2016 Ugandan district elections. In cooperation with a local partner, we compiled, simplified, and text-messaged official information on irregularities in local government budgets. Verified recipients of messages that described more irregularities than expected reported voting for incumbent councillors 6% less often; verified recipients of messages conveying fewer irregularities than expected reported voting for incumbent councillors 5% more often. The messages had no observable effect on votes for incumbent council chairs, potentially due to voters’ greater reliance on other sources of information for higher profile elections. These mixed results suggest that text messages on budget corruption help voters hold some politicians accountable in settings where elections are not free and fair.

The Tortuga Disease: The Perverse Effects of Illicit Capital

Transnational crime brings substantial foreign capital into a number of fragile and developing states. Yet the economic and political impacts of such capital have rarely been studied due to the challenges of obtaining accurate data on illicit activities. We overcome this challenge by compiling a dataset on the amount and disbursement dates of ransom payments made by ship owners and insurers to Somali pirates from 2005 to 2012, along with sub-national commodity prices and trade flows in Somalia. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we hypothesize and find that ransoms have effects similar to those associated with the Dutch Disease. These effects include appreciating the local currency, decreasing export competitiveness, and increasing import dependence. The results illuminate a new channel through which illicit capital can undermine long-term economic development and foster an economic and political dependency on illicit sectors.