Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach

@article{citeulike:1616829, abstract = {Estimating the impact of economic conditions on the likelihood of civil conflict is difficult because of endogeneity and omitted variable bias. We use rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for economic growth in 41 African countries during 1981ndash99. Growth is strongly negatively related to civil conflict: a negative growth shock of five percentage points increases the likelihood of conflict by one-half the following year. We attempt to rule out other channels through which rainfall may affect conflict. Surprisingly, the impact of growth shocks on conflict is not significantly different in richer, more democratic, or more ethnically diverse countries.}, author = {Miguel, Edward1 and Satyanath, Shanker2 and Sergenti, Ernest }, citeulike-article-id = {1616829}, comment = {They were concerned about the endogeneity of economic variables to civil war. In this work, they use exogenous variation in rainfall as an instrumental variable for income growth in order to estimate the impact of economic growth on civil conflict. Sub-Saharan Africa is the ideal region for their method. They investigated 41 countries in the region during 1981-99. Finding: A five-percentage-point negative growth shock increases the likelihood of a civil war the following year by nearly one-half. That is, growth shocks have a dramatic causal impact on the likelihood of civil war. Moreover, the impcat of economic shocks is also approximately the same across the Sub-Saharan countries. }, keywords = {africa, agriculture, economic-shocks, gleditsch2002, rainfall, rebel-recruitment, sub-saharan, war-onset}, posted-at = {2007-09-03 23:21:49}, priority = {0}, title = {Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach}, url = {http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/421174} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1616829 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1616829 TI - Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach N2 - Estimating the impact of economic conditions on the likelihood of civil conflict is difficult because of endogeneity and omitted variable bias. We use rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for economic growth in 41 African countries during 1981ndash99. Growth is strongly negatively related to civil conflict: a negative growth shock of five percentage points increases the likelihood of conflict by one-half the following year. We attempt to rule out other channels through which rainfall may affect conflict. Surprisingly, the impact of growth shocks on conflict is not significantly different in richer, more democratic, or more ethnically diverse countries. KW - africa KW - agriculture KW - economic-shocks KW - gleditsch2002 KW - rainfall KW - rebel-recruitment KW - sub-saharan KW - war-onset N1 - They were concerned about the endogeneity of economic variables to civil war. In this work, they use exogenous variation in rainfall as an instrumental variable for income growth in order to estimate the impact of economic growth on civil conflict. Sub-Saharan Africa is the ideal region for their method. They investigated 41 countries in the region during 1981-99. Finding: A five-percentage-point negative growth shock increases the likelihood of a civil war the following year by nearly one-half. That is, growth shocks have a dramatic causal impact on the likelihood of civil war. Moreover, the impcat of economic shocks is also approximately the same across the Sub-Saharan countries. AU - Miguel, Edward1 AU - Satyanath, Shanker2 AU - Sergenti, Ernest UR - http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/421174 ER -