We survey selected parts of the growing literature on the microeconomics of violent conflict, identifying where academic research has started to establish stylized facts and where methodological and knowledge gaps remain. We focus our review on the role of civilian agency in conflict; on wartime...

This paper examines the effect of oil abundance on political violence. First, we revisit one of the main empirical findings of the civil conflict literature that oil abundance causes civil war. Using a unique panel dataset describing worldwide oil discoveries and extractions, we show that simply...

In this paper we examine the claim that natural resources invite civil conflict, and challenge the main stylized facts in this literature. We find that the nature of causation between resource dependence and civil war is opposite to conventional wisdom. In particular, (i) civil war creates...

Natural and agricultural resources for which there is a substantial black market, such as coca, opium, and diamonds, appear especially likely to be exploited by the parties to a civil conflict. Even legally traded commodities such as oil and timber have been linked to civil war. On the other...

Under the present civil Sudanese conditions, the country endures many hardships which are manifested in economic retraction, inflation, recession and stagflation. However, those are not the sole reasons for the sporadic conflicts that infest the people. Illegitimate property and economic...

We review the main economic models of war and conflict. These models vary in details, but their implications are qualitatively consistent, highlighting key commonalities across a variety of conflict settings. Recent empirical literature, employing both laboratory and field data, in many cases...

This analysis re-examines the relationship between military spending and economic growth using recent advances in panel estimation methods and a large panel dataset. The investigation is able to reproduce many of results of the existing literature and to provide a new analysis on the...

This analysis empirically investigates the relationships between resource windfalls, political regimes, conflict and economic growth using recent advances in panel estimation methods and a distinctive commodity price shock measurement. The paper clarifies many of the ambiguous outcomes of the...

We survey selected parts of the growing literature on the microeconomics of violent conflict, identifying where academic research has started to establish stylized facts and where methodological and knowledge gaps remain. We focus our review on the role of civilian agency in conflict; on wartime...

We estimate the opportunity cost for Iran due to the Islamic revolution and eight years' war with Iraq (1978/79-1988). We apply the synthetic control method in order to compare Iran with a synthetic Iran and answer this counterfactual question. Our results show that, in total, an average Iranian...