Living Within Conflicts: Risk of Violence and Livelihood Portfolios

This paper provides a comprehensive view of household responses to insecurity by examining chances along the extensive and intensive margins of livelihoods during a conflict. In particular, it examines how insecurity affects both the choice of activities and the composition of associated livestock and crop portfolios. Uniquely, I rely on a sample of over 690,000 rural households, accounting for 75 percent of all rural households in Northern Uganda. Overall, the analysis suggests that shifts in the composition and levels of assets are one of the primarily paths by which conflict-risk lowers welfare.