Transitory Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict
To determine the effect of shocks on civil conflict, it is critical to tailor the empirical approach to the persistence of shocks. I illustrate my point by revisiting a cornerstone of the literature on the economics of civil conflict, Miguel, Satyanath, and Sergenti’s (2004) study of rainfall and civil conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. I find their approach to be inappropriate and their conclusions to be incorrect. For example, they conclude that higher rainfall levels are associated with significantly less civil conflict. I show that higher rainfall levels are actually associated with significantly more (not less) conflict in their data.
Data and estimation programs are available further below. For previous versions of the paper scroll down Papers, presentations, and data. Some results have changed because the most recent version of the paper uses the latest data.