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Does a state's use of indiscriminate violence incite insurgent attacks? To date, most existing theories and empirical studies have concluded that such violence is highly counterproductive because it creates new grievances while forcing victims to seek security, if not safety, in rebel arms. This proposition is tested using Russian artillery fire in Chechnya (2000 to 2005) to estimate indiscriminate violence's effect on subsequent patterns of insurgent attacks across matched pairs of similar shelled and nonshelled villages. The findings are counterintuitive. Shelled villages experience a 24 percent reduction in posttreatment mean insurgent attacks relative to control villages. In addition, commonly cited \"triggers\" for insurgent retaliation, including the lethality and destructiveness of indiscriminate violence, are either negatively correlated with insurgent attacks or statistically insignificant.

This study explores the potential of index insurance as a mechanism to finance community-based biodiversity conservation in areas where a strong correlation exists between natural disaster risk, keystone species populations, and the well-being of the local population. We illustrate this potential using the case of hornbill conservation in the Budo-Sungai Padi rainforests of southern Thailand, using 16-y hornbill reproduction data and 5-y household expenditures data reflecting local economic well-being. We show that severe windstorms cause both lower household expenditures and critical nest tree losses that directly constrain nesting capacity and so reduce the number of hornbill chicks recruited in the following breeding season. Forest residents’ coping strategies further disturb hornbills and their forest habitats, compounding windstorms’ adverse effects on hornbills’ recruitment in the following year. The strong statistical relationship between wind speed and both hornbill nest tree losses and household expenditures opens up an opportunity to design wind-based index insurance contracts that could both enhance hornbill conservation and support disaster-affected households in the region. We demonstrate how such contracts could be written and operationalized and then use simulations to show the significant promise of unique insurance-based approaches to address weather-related risk that threatens both biodiversity and poor populations.

During the 1990s and early 2000s the US military was largely shaped by the concept of the revolution in military affairs (RMA) and subsequent force transformation process, which integrated new information and communication technologies, precision strike capabilities, doctrine, operational approaches, and force structures to allow the military to overcome new strategic challenges. Significant questions, however, have emerged regarding the utility of the RMA and transformation during hybrid wars, where the lines blur between conventional and irregular threats. This article examines the utility of transformation during the war in Afghanistan. It argues that a transformation-influenced “light footprint” of special operations forces and airpower has clear relevancy during present and future hybrid conflicts. This relevancy is enhanced when the use of the light footprint is paired with a clear and achievable war aim.¹

Market women, for example, sought to deflect criticism and justify their own economic strategies by shifting blame to drivers, pointing to the high cost of transport as one important explanation for rising prices and dwindling profit margins.7 Waged workers, likewise, expressed discontent over rising transport costs as their wages stagnated and their buying power diminished.\\n They were able to \"make money,\" and for them, shortage meant profit. [...]they and their families valued the independence, flexibility, and mobility of their occupation because of its stable incomethe surety of a daily wage.

Scholars and practitioners often conflate high value targeting (HVT) in support of counter-terrorism with that of HVT counterinsurgency operations. This article presents a framework to better understand the two. It argues that, with the advent of hybrid threats such as the so-called Islamic State (IS), commanders must adopt a blended HVT approach to meet the challenge of groups which deploy both terrorist and insurgent tactics. A combination of the blended HVT approach, along with initiatives designed to counter extremist narratives, will better enable the coalition to destroy IS over the long term.

The accuracy of producers' subjective probability beliefs is examined through a survey of large cash-grain farmers in Illinois. Findings reveal that their subjective probability beliefs about important weather variables are systematically miscalibrated. The nature and extent of differences between subjective probability beliefs and probabilities based on long-term historic weather data are shown empirically, and through fitted calibration functions. The economic significance of inaccurate subjective probability beliefs is established in the context of insurance valuation. The results demonstrate that significant errors in producers' risk assessments and insurance valuation arise as a consequence of producers' systematically inaccurate probability beliefs.

Discusses the impact of employer strike insurance on collective bargaining. Reasons for the opposition of unions to the employer strike insurance; Principles by which employer insurance plans may be formulated; Legality of strike insurance. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

This paper provides a theory of strikes as part of a constrained efficient enforcement mechanism for an implicit contractual agreement. A firm possessing contemporaneously private information about demand engages in an enduring relationship with its workforce. If the information becomes perfectly observable subsequently, then, modulo discounting, the first-best is implementable, but strikes are always off the equilibrium path. If the observations of the workforce are imperfect strikes occur in equilibrium. The dynamic contracting problem is modeled as a repeated game with imperfect monitoring. The equilibrium exhibits production inefficiency and incomplete insurance to mitigate the inefficiencies caused by strikes.

A recent literature has shown that asymmetric information about a firm's profitability does not by itself explain strikes of substantial length if the firm and workers can bargain very frequently without commitment. In this paper we show that substantial strikes are possible if (a) there is a small (but not insignificant) delay between offers; and (b) a strike-bound firm may experience a decline in profitability after a certain point. A brief discussion of the ability of the theory to explain the data on strikes is included.