Transitory Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict
نویسنده
چکیده
To determine the effect of economic shocks on civil conflict, the empirical approach must be tailored to the shocks’ persistence. I illustrate this point by revisiting Miguel, Satyanath, and Sergenti (2004). MSS argue that lower rainfall levels and negative rainfall shocks increase the probability of civil conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa over the 1979-1999 period. I find MSS’s approach and conclusion to be incorrect. For example, according to MSS’s data, lower rainfall levels and negative rainfall shocks (droughts) actually decrease the probability of civil conflict outbreak. The 1979-2009 data also reject that civil conflicts are more likely to start following lower rainfall levels or negative rainfall shocks.
منابع مشابه
Estimating the Effect of Transitory Economic Shocks on Civil Conflict
Economists and political scientists have argued that differences in the risk of civil conflict across countries and over time may partly reflect differences in the opportunity cost of participating in civil conflicts. One way to test for the opportunity-cost channel is to examine civil conflict risk following transitory income shocks. In this paper I propose two instrumentalvariables approaches...
متن کاملNber Working Paper Series Understanding Transitory Rainfall Shocks, Economic Growth and Civil Conflict
Miguel, Satyanath and Sergenti (2004) use rainfall variation as an instrument to show that economic growth is negatively related to civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. In the reduced form regression they find that higher rainfall is associated with less conflict. Ciccone (2010) claims that this conclusion is ‘erroneous’ and argues that higher rainfall levels are actually linked to more confli...
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Previous work by Miguel, Satyanath, and Sergenti (2004), henceforth MSS, addressed the question of whether poor economic performance has a causal effect on civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Using year-to-year rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for economic growth, MSS (2004) find that economic growth is strongly, negatively related to civil conflict: a negative growth shock of 5...
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