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The research examines how NATO's airstrike-only intervention during the Kosovo War affected Albanian civilian victimization. Using a novel dataset (Kosovo Airstrike Locator) and the Kosovo Memory Book, the author finds that while the overall introduction of airstrikes coincided with a dramatic increase in civilian deaths, recently struck municipalities actually saw a decrease in expected victimization. However, this direct effect was offset by indirect consequences: the shift in strike strategy to target military units intensified the violence following battles and KLA soldier deaths, and shifted the geography of victimization toward more populous areas and those with lower Albanian population percentages. The author concludes that airstrike-only interventions can intensify conflict and increase civilian vulnerability, suggesting they should not be the primary tool for protecting civilians without a credible ground-force threat.

The research examines how the effect of anomalous rainfall (excess and scarce) on violent, state-based conflict varies based on societal vulnerability factors. Using a causal forest model on global grid-cell data, the author finds that while rainfall variability generally has a small effect on conflict, this effect is context-specific. Scarce rainfall is more likely to increase conflict risk in communities with high agricultural employment and poor governance (low SHDI and GDP). Excess rainfall's effect is more complex, showing higher risk in areas with high population density, low globalization, low democracy, and low GDP, but contrary to expectations, it showed smaller effects in areas with high political exclusion or greater distance to the capital.

The document argues that rural credit is a central agricultural policy in Brazil that significantly boosts productivity and supports environmental conservation by shifting land use from pastures to croplands, thereby increasing forest areas. It highlights that a 1% increase in rural credit leads to measurable gains in municipal crop production, agricultural GDP, and cropland productivity. However, the brief notes that the current distribution system is complex and fragmented, creating inconsistencies in credit access. It recommends using rural credit to reconcile production and conservation goals and suggests that any policy reforms be introduced gradually to avoid disrupting agricultural output.

The document presents findings from the INPUT project by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), demonstrating that rural credit in Brazil significantly boosts agricultural productivity and municipal GDP while promoting a shift from pasture to crop land, which correlates with an increase in forested areas. It argues that rural credit can be a tool to balance economic growth with environmental protection, though it notes that the current distribution system is complex and fragmented.

The document argues that the relationship between climate shocks and violent conflict is context-dependent, primarily affecting communal conflicts in resource-scarce areas with poor government services. It suggests that maintaining socio-economic development in poor, conflict-prone states is essential to minimizing the future impact of climate change on violent conflict.

The study finds a positive correlation between education and protest activity across 42 African countries, suggesting that education increases both the motivation to challenge authoritarian regimes and the organizational capacity to stage protests.

The research argues that autocratic elections create a temporal trade-off: they increase the immediate risk of regime failure by serving as focal points for opposition collective action, but enhance long-term stability by improving the regime's capacity for co-optation, repression, and legitimacy. Using data from 115 countries, the authors find that this pattern is most pronounced in multi-party contested elections. The study employs Instrumental Variables Probit models to suggest that the short-term destabilizing effect is causal and not merely a result of strategic timing by autocrats.

The research finds that the blacklisting of priority municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon significantly reduced deforestation, avoiding the clearing of approximately 11,218 to 11,396 km2 of forest from 2008 to 2011. The authors conclude that this effect was primarily driven by intensified monitoring and law enforcement—specifically an increase in the number of fines—rather than economic sanctions. The study demonstrates that the policy had no significant negative impact on agricultural GDP, crop production, or rural credit concessions, suggesting that forest protection in the region does not necessarily constrain agricultural production.