This handbook chapter provides a synthesis of the literature on armed conflicts, with a special focus on development economics, while covering also other disciplines. The piece starts off with a discussion of the main consequences of conflict before investigating its root causes. First, a series...

Blair et al. (2023) examine the effect of UN peacekeeping on democratization in conflict-affected countries. They use fixed effects and instrumental variable estimators and find evidence that "UN missions with democracy promotion mandates are strongly positively correlated with the quality of...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

The Middle East has experienced significant and wide-ranging consequences due to terrorism and the resulting War on Terror. The region saw substantial impacts as a result of the War on Terror. This study briefly overviews the security, economic and political repercussions of the prolonged...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

In the early 2000s, the Colombian government aired messages during games of the national football team, urging FARC rebels to demobilize. We first study the strategy's effectiveness, leveraging game dates, kick-off times, and spatial-temporal variation in rain-induced signal strength in a...

Can past wartime experiences other than violence have long-term effects on political attitudes and behaviours? How are these legacies sustained across generations and beyond those who directly experienced war? We explore these questions in Italy, a country whose democratic institutions were...

Many of the world's LDCs are plagued by recurring conflict. Conflict impedes sustainable development through various channels, creating conditions conducive to further conflict. Conflict has redistributive impacts, particularly when it erupts in resource-rich countries. Between 2002 and 2011,...

This paper empirically investigates the effects of Anti-Open Grazing Laws (AOGLs) on herder-farmer conflicts in Nigeria. The laws, enacted as a response to escalating violent conflicts over fertile land resources between herders and farmers, aimed to reduce clashes by prohibiting livestock...

Wars fueled by resource wealth pose complex challenges for conflict resolution. I combine data on conflict events, rebel resource dependence, world market prices, and ceasefire details to investigate how fluctuations in rebel funding affect the likelihood of ceasefires. Increased funding...

How do violent conflicts shape cross-border lending? Using data on syndicated loans by 14,021 creditors to firms in 179 countries (1989-2020), we document a dual effect: foreign banks reduce overall lending relative to domestic banks but significantly increase financing to military and dual-use...

The war in Sudan, which broke out on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has triggered the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Civilians are being directly attacked by the warring parties. The violent actors are destroying...

Rebels, militias, and criminal groups all govern civilians. Governing strategies adopted by armed groups during civil war likely influence citizens' post-conflict political participation, with consequences for democratic politics. We theorize that an armed group's position relative to the state...

Greece experienced a devastating civil war in 1946-1949. This led to many deaths, economic losses, and severe reductions in schooling expenditures and attendance. Using an instrumental variables approach, we estimate the 1977 returns to schooling, showing that for those affected by the civil...

Greece experienced a devastating civil war in 1946-1949. This led to many deaths, economic losses, and severe reductions in schooling expenditures and attendance. Using an instrumental variables approach, we estimate the 1977 returns to schooling, showing that for those affected by the civil...

Despite great falls in global poverty, civil and ethnic conflict remains tragically common. In this chapter, I examine the patterns of persistence and change in conflict around the world through the lens of historical political economy. I compare two important approaches for measuring the impact...

This paper presents evidence of political legacies of exposure to a violent class conflict over 100 years. We revisit the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and first trace out the impact of local conflict exposure on electoral outcomes over a quarter-century period between the World Wars. The electoral...

This research project traces how women's participation in the Liberian civil wars, as combatants and peace agents, reconstructs gender relations in the post-civil war context. The current literature examines the role of women in the governance of rebel groups, emphasizing how women operate...

How do civil war dynamics affect state-building decisions in the aftermath of conflict? This paper argues that, in the post-conflict period, the state focuses its efforts to build state capacity on areas in which state power has been eroded during wartime, with the goal of avoiding future...

Blair et al. (2023) examine the effect of UN peacekeeping on democratization in conflict-affected countries. They use fixed effects and instrumental variable estimators and find evidence that "UN missions with democracy promotion mandates are strongly positively correlated with the quality of...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

This study investigates the case of Iran to evaluate how changes in the intensity of international sanctions affect internal conflict in the target country. Estimating a vector autoregressive model for the period between 2001q2 and 2020q3 with quarterly data on internal conflict and its three...

This study investigates the impact of the Syrian civil war and refugee status on the risk of physical intimate partner violence (IPV) among Syrian women in Jordan, the country with the second highest refugee-to-native ratio worldwide. We analyze data from the 2017-18 Jordan Population and Family...

There are still a number of UN arms embargoes in place to prevent the flow of arms and military material into conflict zones. Although the UN Security Council is not generally deadlocked on this issue, it has only taken relevant decisions to re-design the embargoes in a few cases over the last...

Armed conflicts significantly affect the social and economic conditions of societies in turmoil, disrupting the normal functioning of local economies. This study seeks to delve into the repercussions of armed conflicts on the dynamics of local economies in Ségou and Mopti, Mali, since the...