Income and Armed Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach
-
Christa N. Brunnschweiler
and
Päivi Lujala
Abstract
The large empirical conflict literature has established that there is a strong negative link between economic variables and the onset of an armed civil conflict. However, it has been difficult to demonstrate a clear causality between poor economic performance and increased risk of conflict because of potential endogeneity issues, especially for large country samples. Most existing studies that analyse the causal links focus on the effects of economic growth on conflict, even though conventional conflict studies find the strongest relationship for income levels. In this article, we use three new exogenous instruments for income per capita, based on historical data for mailing times, telegram charges and urbanization rates. Using instrumental variables methods and global panel data for the period 1946–2014, we show that the negative effect of income per capita on the probability of conflict onset is consistently strong and larger than in conventional estimations using pooled ordinary least square regressions.
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©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction to the Proceedings of the 17th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference
- On the Proper Use of Game-Theoretic Models in Conflict Studies
- Ornithology and Varieties of Conflict: A Personal Retrospective on Conflict Forecasting
- Conflict Fragmentation Index
- Income and Armed Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach
- Land-Use Change and Communal Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Bridging Economics and International Relations to Understand State Capacity and War in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Political Regimes and Government’s Reaction to Terrorism. A Simple Model
- A Perfect Match? Are Dogmatic Belief Systems Simply a Reconciliation of Cognitive and Emotional Human Needs?
- Urban Protests, Coups d’état and Post-Coup Regime Change
- Nonviolent Resistance and Peaceful Turnover of Power
- Political Cycles in Military Deployment
- Buying Friends? The Importance of Economic Flows in Assembling the Iraq War Coalition
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction to the Proceedings of the 17th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference
- On the Proper Use of Game-Theoretic Models in Conflict Studies
- Ornithology and Varieties of Conflict: A Personal Retrospective on Conflict Forecasting
- Conflict Fragmentation Index
- Income and Armed Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach
- Land-Use Change and Communal Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Bridging Economics and International Relations to Understand State Capacity and War in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Political Regimes and Government’s Reaction to Terrorism. A Simple Model
- A Perfect Match? Are Dogmatic Belief Systems Simply a Reconciliation of Cognitive and Emotional Human Needs?
- Urban Protests, Coups d’état and Post-Coup Regime Change
- Nonviolent Resistance and Peaceful Turnover of Power
- Political Cycles in Military Deployment
- Buying Friends? The Importance of Economic Flows in Assembling the Iraq War Coalition
