Despite informality being the norm in conflict-affected countries, most estimates of the impact of conflict on economic activity rely on formal sector data. Using high-frequency data from Afghanistan, this paper assesses how surges in conflict intensity affect not only the formal sector, but...

What underlying long-term conditions set the stage for the Arab Spring? In recent decades, the Arab region has been characterized by an expansion in schooling coupled with weak labor market conditions. This pattern is especially pronounced in those countries that saw significant upheaval during...

Higher national incomes are correlated with political stability. Is this relationship causal? We test three theories linking income to conflict with new data on export price shocks. Price shocks have no effect on new conflict, even large shocks in high-risk nations. Rising prices, however,...

We examine how group-specific differences in reservation wage, arising due to asymmetries in social entitlements, impact on distribution via the joint determination of class conflict between workers and employers, and ‘ethnic’ conflict among workers. We model a two-dimensional contest, where...

La apropiación de recursos económicos puede ser el medio de financiación de los grupos armados y a la vez determinante de la persistencia del conflicto. En Colombia, la apropiación de tierras ha sido una estrategia recurrente de los grupos armados al margen de la ley para aumentar su control...

This paper examines the individual incentives to identify to one's ethnic group rather than to the nation, based on large sample surveys representative of seven capitals of West-African countries. Three main driving forces stand out. First, we show that education brings down ethnic salience at...

This paper examines the individual determinants of ethnic identication using large sample surveys (about 30,000 respondents) representative of seven capitals of West-African countries. A small model that relates ethnic identication to an investment in ethnic capital suggests that individuals...

Edward Miguel, Shanker Satyanath, and Ernest Sergenti (2004), henceforth MSS, argue that lower rainfall levels and negative rainfall shocks increase conflict risk in sub-Saharan Africa. This conclusion rests on their finding of a negative correlation between conflict in t and rainfall growth...

Miguel, Satyanath, and Ernest Sergenti (2004), henceforth MSS, show that economic growth is negatively related to civil conflict in Africa, using annual rainfall variation as an IV for growth. Antonio Ciccone (2011) argues that thanks to rainfall's mean-reverting nature, rainfall levels are...