TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jones,Benjamin F.
AU  - Olken,Benjamin A.
TI  - Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13102
PY  - 2007
Y2  - May 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13102
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13102.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Benjamin Jones
Northwestern University
Kellogg School of Management
Department of Management and Strategy
2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL  60208
Tel: 847/491-3177
Fax: 847/467-1777
E-Mail: bjones@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Benjamin A. Olken
Department of Economics
MIT
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/588-1437
Fax: 617/868-2742
E-Mail: bolken@mit.edu
AB  - Assassinations are a persistent feature of the political landscape.  Using a new data set of assassination attempts on all world leaders from 1875 to 2004, we exploit inherent randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify assassination's effects. We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy. We also find that assassinations affect the intensity of small-scale conflicts. The results document a contemporary source of institutional change, inform theories of conflict, and show that small sources of randomness can have a pronounced effect on history.
ER  -