Aspects économiques des guerres civiles

Policy makers and academics now realize that understanding or promoting economic development requires an understanding of the economic causes of conflict and the structures of war economies. This essay provides a critical survey of recent quantitative work that addresses these themes ; it uses findings from more qualitative research to evaluate the choices of questions studied and challenges the key findings. The author considers the roles of wealth, inequality, natural resources and economic policies on conflict onset, as well as the economic costs of conflict and the economic activities of rebels, corporations and the international community. He ends by pointing to open research areas in the study of economics and conflict.