Recent research on violence against civilians during wars has emphasized war-related factors over political ones. For example, factors such as control of territory or characteristics of the armed groups have been prioritized at the expense of factors such as ideological alignments or local...

Using the synthetic control method of analysis, we provide the first measurements of the direct economic benefits of a unique robust security response to an insurgency. Of all the states affected by Naxalite violence in India, only one state i.e. Andhra Pradesh raised a specially trained and...

This chapter examines how the relationship between economic exclusion, inequality, conflict and violence shape the goal of establishing shared societies. The chapter discusses how this impact is largely determined by the emergence and organisation of social and political institutions in areas of...

We study the effect of civil conflict on social capital, focusing on the experience of Uganda during the last decade. Using individual and county-level data, we document large causal effects on trust and ethnic identity of an exogenous outburst of ethnic conflicts in 2002-05. We exploit two...

History offers many examples of dictators who worsened their behavior significantly over time (like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe), while there are also cases of dictators who have displayed remarkable improvements (like Jerry Rawlings of Ghana). We show that such mutations can result from rational...

We test whether living through conflict in childhood changes political beliefs and engagement. We combine data on the location and intensity of conflicts since 1945 with nationally representative data on political attitudes and behaviors from 17 sub-Saharan African countries. Exposure from ages...

Evidence of a causal effect of inequality on crime is scarce in developing countries. This paper estimates the effect in a unique context: Mexico's Drug War. The analysis exploits a unique dataset containing inequality and crime statistics for more than 2,000 Mexican municipalities over a...

In Mexico, conflicts between drug-trafficking organisations result in a high number of deaths and immense suffering among both victims and non-victims every year. Little scientific research exists which identifies and quantifies the monetary and nonmonetary consequences of ongoing violent...

We use a new dataset from Burundi to analyze the role of local institutions as determinants of income, distinguishing between three distinct dimensions of the institutional framework: (i) property rights security, (ii) local political leadership and (iii) social capital. Using measures of...