GrowthChat is a podcast on the social and cultural journey of humankind, hosted by Marco Lecci and Sascha O. Becker.  In this episode we chat with Raul Sanchez de la Sierra about his paper "On the Origins of the State: Stationary Bandits and Taxation in Eastern Congo’”. Raul, in his paper, finds that armed actors may create “essential functions of a state” to better expropriate, which, depending on their goals, can increase welfare.