We experimentally study how economic prospects and power shifts affect the risk of conflict through a dynamic power rivalry game. Players decide whether to maintain the status quo or challenge a rival under declining, constant, or growing economic prospects. We find that conflict rates are...

US drone strikes are popular with the electorate and overseen by the President. This pa- per investigates whether the US President uses drone strikes strategically for political gain. We document that US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen are sig- nificantly more likely...

This paper examines the role of social protection in mitigating the adverse effects of conflict on household welfare. We assess the impact of a graduation intervention linked to Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, focusing on Amhara, a region severely affected by the Tigray conflict....

We synthesize research on conflict as a fundamental economic phenomenon, arguing that the implications of the "dark side of self-interest" have received insufficient attention in economics. We define conflict as interactions where parties choose costly inputs that are adversarially combined...

We investigate how exposure to conflict events shapes individuals' democratic preferences, focusing on support for democracy in general and perceptions of governance within one's own country. We examine how ethnic affiliation - whether an individual belongs to an ethnic group with access to...

This study investigates whether including women in peace negotiations has facilitated lasting peace. We argue that female negotiators and the action of women's civil society groups that advocate for gender-related provisions strengthen peace durability. We contend that genderspecific...

The impact of conflict on taxation and development has long been debated. Most studies suggest that conflict will have a depressive effect on state tax collection, negatively impacting economic growth and development. After reviewing the existing literature, we argue for an approach that...

This study shows that civilians' behavior can be severely affected by territorial control by an insurgent group, and that these effects can persist after the government regains control and the occupation ends. I consider a framework of civilian behavior under insurgent rule, where civilians have...

We theoretically investigate how the application of unanimity rule can lead to inefficient delay in collective decision making. We do so in the context of a distributive multilateral bargaining model featuring strategic pre-commitment. Prior to each bargaining round, players can declare a...

Conflict undermines development, while poverty, in turn, breeds conflict. Policy interventions such as cash transfers could lower engagement in conflict by raising poor households' welfare and productivity. However, cash transfers may also trigger appropriation or looting of cash or assets. The...

How does conflict exposure affect trust? We hypothesize that direct (firsthand) experience with conflict induces parochialism: trust towards out-groups worsens, but trust towards in-groups, owing to positive experiences of kin solidarity, may improve. Indirect exposure to conflict through...

We investigate the impact of the political representation of minority groups on the incidence of ethnic conflict in India. We code data on Hindu-Muslim violence and Muslim political representation in India and leverage quasi-random variation in legislator religion generated by the results of...

Studies presented the importance of conflict costs. Cultural diversity adds more complexity to working groups, fostering conflict. The aim of this research is to investigate how cultural diversity affects conflict costs, measured in terms of lost time & cost amplifiers. Data was collected...

We exploit 0.5°×0.5° raster data for mainland Southeast Asia from 2010 to 2020 to document a non-linear relationship between extreme temperature days and conflict. We show that the occurrence of conflict events increases with extreme maximum temperature days, whereas days with extreme minimum...

We examine whether frontier rule, which disallows frontier residents from a recourse to formal institutions of conflict management and disproportionately empowers tribal elites, provides a more fragile basis for maintaining social order in the face of shocks. Combining a historical border...

We investigate experimentally the effects of information about native/immigrant identity, and the ability to communicate a self-chosen personal characteristic towards the rival on conflict behavior. In a two-player individual contest with British and Immigrant subjects in the UK we find that...

We offer a critique of a paper recently published Lorenzoni and Werning (2023). The paper seeks to make a) an original contribution to the hypothesis that inflation is primarily caused by conflict, and b) reconcile the Post-Keynesian and New-Keynesian traditions. In the first section the authors...

We provide novel evidence of how an innovative market-based solution using remote-sensing technology can mitigate conflict. Droughts are a major driver of conflict in Africa, particularly between nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, and climate change is predicted to intensify this...

Building upon the argument that factor endowments influence distributional outcomes, this paper examines the consequences of the China shock to global food markets for economic inequality in Brazilian municipalities from 1985 to 2020. I propose a new identification strategy that exploits...

In recent years Myanmar has witnessed considerable economic and political instability, leading many young people, particularly the higher-skilled, to consider migrating abroad for improved prospects. We employ an innovative method to quantify migration intentions among high-skilled youth by...

We examine the relationship between violent conflict and the willingness of potential migrants to accept lower skilled work (occupational downgrading). We develop a theoretical model of migration decisions, which we test using an innovative survey module administered to high-skilled youth in...

This paper examines the role of social protection in mitigating the adverse effects of conflict on household welfare. We assess the impact of a graduation intervention linked to Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, focusing on Amhara, a region severely affected by the Tigray conflict....

This study investigates the impact of U.S. economic sanctions on internal instability and conflict using a global sample. Our analysis, which includes cross-country and panel data from over 120 countries between 1996 and 2022, shows that economic sanctions increase the risk of internal conflict...

We experimentally study how economic prospects and power shifts affect the risk of conflict through a dynamic power rivalry game. Players decide whether to maintain the status quo or challenge a rival under declining, constant, or growing economic prospects. We find that conflict rates are...

We examine the political costs of taxation in early modern France. We focus on efforts to enforce the salt tax, the rate of which varied across regions. Using a spatial difference-in-discontinuities design, we compare municipalities just inside the high-tax region with those just outside, before...

While the determinants of refugee migration are well-studied, heterogeneities within the group of refugees have received little attention. In this paper, we use data on female and male refugee movements among African and Asian countries in the years 2002–2018 to explore gender differences in...

While the determinants of refugee migration are well-studied, heterogeneities within the group of refugees have received little attention. In this paper, we use data on female and male refugee movements among African and Asian countries in the years 2002–2018 to explore gender differences in...

We examine the effect of inter-group competition on within-group violent conflict in Indonesia. Using a triple-differences design, we find that higher competition between villages reduces within-village conflict. These effects persist regardless of the competition's outcome, are stronger in...

US drone strikes are popular with the electorate and overseen by the President. This pa- per investigates whether the US President uses drone strikes strategically for political gain. We document that US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen are sig- nificantly more likely...

This paper provides evidence on the impacts of armed conflict and climate change on individual labor intensity. Based on pooled labor force survey, climate, and conflict event data from 21 African countries, we document that climate change and armed conflict can create a polycrisis: the negative...

On December 8, 2024, the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime, abruptly changed Syria's political landscape and reshaped the return prospects for millions of Syrians living abroad. We exploit this unanticipated regime change as a natural experiment to estimate the causal impact of...

Using a short- and long-term macroeconomic forecasts, we estimate the cost of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine for countries in Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Shortly after the Russian attack, the projected cost (cumulative over six years) stood at $2.44 trillion for the...

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...

We exploit a historical experiment that occurred in Czechoslovakia after World War Two to study the drivers of social capital accumulation in an extremely unfavorable environment. Between 1945 and 1948, the Sudetenland became the scene of ethnic cleansing, with the expulsion of nearly three...

Biodiversity is essential for ecological stability, human well-being, and economic progress, providing critical ecosystem services such as clean water, food, and climate regulation. However, it faces unprecedented threats, with extinction rates accelerating to 1,000 times the natural baseline...

We exploit a historical experiment that occurred in Czechoslovakia after World War Two to study the drivers of social capital accumulation in an extremely unfavorable environment. Between 1945 and 1948, the Sudetenland became the scene of ethnic cleansing, with the expulsion of nearly three...