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The economics of civil wars:A survey
Free interpretative arrangements; mostly from: C. Blattman and E. Miguel (2010),
Civil wars,Journal of Economic Literature, 48(1), 3-57.
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UCDP Armed Conflict Database
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Incidence of civil war/conflict by
duration: 1960-2006
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Incidence of civil war/conflict by per
capita GDP: 1960-2006
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Modeling: methodology
Group rationality and strategic behavior of
insurgents/counterinsurgents/state
Appropriation vs pro uction - contest successfunction:
We (economists) do not do this! Ohhh no!
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Modeling: Individual participation
Individual choice:
1. opportunity costs of fighting and expected benefits theoretical
implications for per capita income are uncertain2. individuals place inherent value on retaliation against an unjust state
Principal agent:
1. rebel leaders use material incentives/ethnic appeals to motivate citizens -
socialbetween the leader and the recruit2. threats and punishments as selective incentives, in the absence of a shared
social basis for mobilizing support - rationale for using coercion on lowproductivity recruits (especially children)
Coalition formation:
1. Along racial/ethnic groups to commit not to defect to winner
2. Along pre-existing networks for efficient informationtransmission/coordination of violent enforcement
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Modeling: War as rational conflict resolution
mechanism
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Correlations with civil war incidence:
Cross-country evidence
Correlation:
slow current growth
per capita income
Income shocks
natural resources/total exports
rough terrain
population size
Uncorrelated after conditioning:
ethnic fractionalization
income inequality
democracy
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Correlation/causation caveatExample: civil wars ---------- per capita income
1. low per capita income civil war (via smallopportunity cost of fighting)
1. civil war low per capita income (via destruction ofphysical, human, and social capital)
1. ethnic fragmentation low per capita income
civil war
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Natural experiments, IVs, better
measurement rainfall as IV for income shocks (yes! but possibly: via govt
resources and opportunity costs of farmers)
import-export price shocks as IV for income shocks (no) more precise measures of natural resources: oil, diamonds (yes!)
better theoretically grounded measures: income polarization forine ualit es! , ethnic/reli ious fractionalization ?
political institutions and governance from case studies: enclaveproduction, weakness of democratic institutions from polity IV, newvs established democracies, inclusiveness of political institutions,geographic concentration of power, state control over thegeographic periphery, direct taxation for state efficiency (unclear!)
related lhs variables: length (correlated with ethnicfractionalization), termination
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Descriptive factors from case studies external financing to sustain insurgencies
earlier state repression
persistent ethnic or elite class dominance
peripheral regions with weak central government
Institutional historical transformations: the nineteenth
century incorporation of most of Africa and Asia intoEuropean empires, and mid-twentieth century formation ofnation-states in those regions
contagion from neighboring countries
refugee flows foreign aid
Cold War interventions
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Missing (?)
models of spread of rebellion, social
(global/local) interactions, networks,
(across individuals, not countries and I am not talking
about Twitter and Facebook)
micro-data appropriate to test and estimate
these models
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Off-topic:
qualms between academic disciplines
Why didnt anybody complain about the
inability of political scientists to accurately
about economists and the 2008 financial
crisis?
Dedicato a Giovanni Sartori e ai suoi bravi