Export Crops and Civil Conflict

Crost, Benjamin; Felter, Joseph H.

doi:10.1093/jeea/jvz025

Cited by 45 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…When we more closely inspect some of the positive estimates for agricultural commodities, we find authors arguing that these particular crops are more capital intensive: for example, Gehring et al (2018) argue that wheat production in Afghanistan is relatively capital intensive. Crost and Felter (2019: 3) report that price increases for bananas only exacerbate conflict where production occurs on large plantations, not where smaller-scale, labor-intensive production predominates. H2 and H3 do not generate a clear prediction for artisanal minerals, which are both labor-intensive and lootable.…”

Section: Meta-analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Commodity Price Shocks Cause Armed Conflict? A Meta-Analysis of Natural Experiments

2021

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Scholars of the resource curse argue that reliance on primary commodities destabilizes governments: price fluctuations generate windfalls or periods of austerity that provoke or intensify civil conflict. Over 350 quantitative studies test this claim, but prominent results point in different directions, making it difficult to discern which results reliably hold across contexts. We conduct a meta-analysis of 46 natural experiments that use difference-in-difference designs to estimate the causal effect of commodity price changes on armed civil conflict. We show that commodity price changes, on average, do not change the likelihood of conflict. However, there are cross-cutting effects by commodity type. In line with theory, we find price increases for labor-intensive agricultural commodities reduce conflict, while increases in the price of oil, a capital-intensive commodity, provoke conflict. We also find that price increases for lootable artisanal minerals provoke conflict. Our meta-analysis consolidates existing evidence, but also highlights opportunities for future research.

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Section: Meta-analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Commodity Price Shocks Cause Armed Conflict? A Meta-Analysis of Natural Experiments

2021

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“…Empirically, evidence in support of this channel is mixed. Bazzi and Blattman (2014) find that positive (commodity price-induced) income shocks may shorten existing conflicts, while Crost and Felter (2019) find that (export) commodity price shocks in the Philippines cause an increase in violence which is concentrated in parts of the country where export crop production is due to large firms. Fetzer and Kyburz (2018) highlight the role of institutions: cohesive democratic institutions in Nigeria weaken the pass-through of commodity price shocks on conflict.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India

Fetzer

2020

Journal of the European Economic Association

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Can public interventions persistently reduce conflict? Adverse weather shocks, through their impact on incomes, have been identified as robust drivers of conflict in many contexts. An effective social insurance system moderates the impact of adverse shocks on household incomes, and hence, could attenuate the link between these shocks and conflict. This paper shows that a public employment program in India, by providing an alternative source of income through a guarantee of 100 days of employment at minimum wages, effectively provides insurance. This has an indirect pacifying effect. By weakening the link between productivity shocks and incomes, the program uncouples productivity shocks from conflict, leading persistently lower conflict levels.

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“…Rebel violence in Africa, for instance, targeted farming areas in order to deny those resources to the central government (Koren, 2019). Especially in the absence of external support, rebels often rely on a local population for food (Hendrix & Brinkman, 2013); ‘insurgents gain strength from extorting agricultural exporters’ (Crost & Felter, 2016).…”

Section: Syria’s Civil War and The Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beyond food for sustenance, the revenues earned from selling harvests have funded ISIS, Free Syrian Army (FSA), Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), 2 and other Syrian groups (Sly, 2019; Kanfash & al-Jasem, 2019). Rebel organizations often relied on local populations for their supply of food and other resources (Weinstein, 2006; Hazen, 2013; Hendrix & Brinkman, 2013; Crost & Felter, 2016; Koren, 2019). Governments struggle to diminish those resources that support rebel fighting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weather, wheat, and war: Security implications of climate variability for conflict in Syria

Linke¹,

Ruether

2021

Journal of Peace Research

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We examine how Syria’s local growing seasons and precipitation variability affected patterns of violence during the country’s civil war (2011–19). Among Syria’s 272 subdistricts ( nahiyah), we study conflict events initiated by the Assad regime or its allies, and, separately, by other armed non-government groups (‘rebels’). Throughout the war, violence to capture agriculture has been used regularly to control valuable cropland and harvests. Combatants also seek to deny their adversaries access to these resources by deploying violence to destroy agriculture. We test the hypothesis that conflict was most likely during local growing seasons due to both of these motivations. Additionally, we examine whether unusually dry conditions further elevated the risk of conflict during growing season months. A theory for why higher levels of conflict would occur during unusually dry conditions is that livelihood losses elevate incentives to control scarce crops and also facilitate recruitment of militants or their sympathizers. We find that violent events initiated by the government and rebel groups are both more likely during the growing season than other times of the year. There is also evidence that dry conditions during the growing season led to an increase in government-initiated attacks over the duration of the war. We find the strongest relationship between precipitation deficits and both government- and rebel-initiated violence in later years of the war. Compared with our growing season results, the rainfall deviation estimates are less consistent across models.

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Export Crops and Civil Conflict

Cited by 45 publications

References 42 publications

Do Commodity Price Shocks Cause Armed Conflict? A Meta-Analysis of Natural Experiments

Do Commodity Price Shocks Cause Armed Conflict? A Meta-Analysis of Natural Experiments

Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India

Weather, wheat, and war: Security implications of climate variability for conflict in Syria

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