Fertile Ground for Conflict

Berman, Nicolas; Couttenier, Mathieu; Soubeyran, Raphaël

doi:10.1093/jeea/jvz068

Cited by 26 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…In particular, Dube and Vargas (2013) find that a drop in coffee prices in Columbia puts pressure on wages and can induce conflict events. In line with this, Berman et al (2017b) show that spikes in fertilizer prices can increase the likelihood of conflict.…”

Section: Feedback Loop -Poverty To Future Conflictsupporting

confidence: 53%

The Elusive Peace Dividend of Development Policy: From War Traps to Macro Complementarities

Rohner

Thoenig

2021

Annu. Rev. Econ.

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This article reviews the literature on civil conflict and development with a focus on the socioeconomic consequences of violence and on promising policies for fostering peace. We make four main points. First, one of the reasons conflict is still often overlooked as key factor for development is that conflict costs are typically underestimated, in particular the shadow costs of deterrence. Second, there are several types of war traps that hold countries back, both economically and politically. Third, to break these traps, policies must be calibrated to address jointly both poverty and social tensions, as there is a strong macro complementarity between peace and development objectives. We document how single-minded policies that ignore this dual challenge can spectacularly fail, and we discuss in depth a series of particularly promising policies. Fourth, we highlight the increasing potential of novel data collection methodologies and the need for policy evaluation tools in violent contexts. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Economics, Volume 13 is August 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Section: Feedback Loop -Poverty To Future Conflictsupporting

confidence: 53%

The Elusive Peace Dividend of Development Policy: From War Traps to Macro Complementarities

Rohner

Thoenig

2021

Annu. Rev. Econ.

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“…Further related contributions include Berman et al. (2021), who show that higher fertilizer prices incentivize poorly endowed farmers to attempt appropriating land as a consequence of their higher input prices. Acemoglu et al.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The role of markets on resource conflicts*

Dickson

MacKenzie

Sekeris

2022

Scandinavian J Economics

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We develop a generalized theory of resource conflict. We demonstrate that the existence of a resource curse (or blessing) relies on two fundamental elements: (i) market conditions; and (ii) the production technology or agents’ preferences, depending on the context under study. When resource prices are treated as exogenous, we obtain the conventional result: an increase in the value of the resource rent, due to an increase in its price or its availability (or lower opportunity cost of appropriation), increases conflict. However, when the price of the contestable resource is endogenously determined (i.e., in local markets) or if markets do not exist, we find that the relationship between conflict intensity and resource abundance depends on the production technology or on agents’ preferences: conflict can increase when the contestable resource becomes scarcer. Therefore, our paper identifies a fundamental transmission mechanism in resource conflicts.

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“…The Greek and Roman writers make multiple references both to the benefits of soil quality and the threat of soil degradation, and by the 1500s in Europe soil was regarded as the key factor of an economy [11]. History is full of examples of land-related wars and conquests, often correlated with soil quality [13][14][15] and repression and killing of those seeking to protect land and soil quality continues today [16,17].…”

Section: The Evolution Of Soil Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

Saving the ground beneath our feet: Establishing priorities and criteria for governing soil use and protection

Peake

Robb²

2021

R. Soc. open sci.

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The continual loss and impairment of soil ecosystem services (SES) across the globe calls for a fundamental reconsideration of soil governance mechanisms. This critical synthesis charts the history and evolution of national and international soil law and seeks to unravel certain challenges that have contributed to this failure in governance. It describes and categorizes law and policy responses to different soil threats, and identifies a worrying widespread absence of legislation for oversight and protection of agricultural soils from urbanization, as well as a lack of clear legal mechanisms to determine national priorities for soil protection. A reduction in the world's prime farmland threatens SES, including food security, carbon storage and biodiversity. Falling between the stalls of agricultural and environmental law, the fate of farmland is often left to planners who do not see themselves as responsible for soils. Consequently, legal instruments with the greatest power to affect soil, sometimes irreversibly, are often framed and worded with little or no reference to the soil. Nevertheless, emerging conceptual frameworks might offer positive outcomes. The authors advocate robust holistic policies of soil governance and land use planning that place SES and natural capital at the heart of decision making.

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Fertile Ground for Conflict

Cited by 26 publications

References 76 publications

The Elusive Peace Dividend of Development Policy: From War Traps to Macro Complementarities

The Elusive Peace Dividend of Development Policy: From War Traps to Macro Complementarities

The role of markets on resource conflicts*

Saving the ground beneath our feet: Establishing priorities and criteria for governing soil use and protection

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