Provision of Public Goods and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Colombia

The Colombian conflict has lasted for around 50 years. It has been fueled by the financial opportunities coming from production and traffic of illegal drugs, and predation of other natural resources. In such a context it is not clear what policies are more effective to reduce conflict. Two public policies that are frequently mentioned as effective to reduce conflict are investments in roads and education. However, a priori, both investments in roads and education may either increase or reduce conflict. After controlling for possible problems of endogeneity, we show that increases in roads provision reduces conflict while education does not. Because this is robust to controlling for measures of state capacity and governance, and the opportunity cost of conflict, our results are likely to be explained by the relative mobility of education and roads. Policies that increase roads provision might help to fight against the intensity of conflict.