The effects of wartime institutions on households’ ability to cope with shocks: Evidence for Colombia

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.Abstract: This paper studies the legacies of wartime institutions, measured as rebelocracy, on the ability of households to cope with negative income shocks. Rebelocracy is the social order established by non-state armed actors in the communities they control. By providing public goods and a predictable framework within which to operate, rebelocracy may generate incentives for households to expand production and accumulate wealth, placing them in a higher income trajectory than households living in war zones amid violence and chaos. If these better economic conditions persist after non-state armed actors leave the territory, households in communities that had stronger rebelocracy levels will be better able to cope with negative income shocks. The empirical strategy identifies households' responses to random weather shocks and estimates their heterogeneous impact by the level of rebelocracy. Using a household panel in four conflict regions in Colombia, the estimation controls for time-invariant unobservables. The study finds that in regions with strong rebelocracy, households are better able to cope with negative weather shocks than those living in regions with non-state armed actor presence but with limited or no intervention. The former households face a lower economic impact of weather shocks and resort less to survival migration. The effect of rebelocracy is driven mostly by the provision of public goods by non-state armed actors. While this paper is not claiming causal impacts of rebelocracy, its coefficient estimates are robust to controlling for confounders that may explain rebelocracy in the first place.

Climate, conflict and internal migration in Colombia

“…The results of the study show that while economic incentives are important for explaining mobility decisions, violence affects the relevance of economic factors. Ibáñez et al (2019) found that the economic impact of weather shocks in Colombia can lead to migration, and that the mobility response is modulated by the existence of particular wartime institutions in the origin location.…”

Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societies

“…Hezbollah provide hospitals, health centres, schools, orphanages, supermarkets, gas stations, among other services that reach large numbers of communities in southern Lebanon (Flanigan 2008;Heger and Jung 2017). The FARC in Colombia financed the construction of roads, provided medical services, and offered a range of justice and conflict adjudication processes (Arjona 2016;Ibáñez et al 2019). Justice and local conflict resolution provision was also at the heart of the expansion of Naxal rebels in India (Kennedy 2014).…”

“…Wartime governance can take on different forms ranging from the ad-hoc participation of armed groups in civilian affairs (Arjona 2016;Ibáñez et al 2019;Kaplan 2017), the capture or co-option of local institutions for strategic purposes (Ch et al 2018;Gáfaro et al 2014Gáfaro et al , 2022Gassier 2021;Raleigh and De Bruijne 2017), symbiotic relations between rebel and state groups (Staniland 2012(Staniland , 2014(Staniland , 2021, and being the de facto ruler (Arjona 2016;Mampilly 2011). Wartime governance can be exercised in specific territories by one group alone, under duopoly arrangements, or through a variety of contracts, bargains, and alliances between several groups.…”

“…Some limit the provision of goods and services to individuals and households in areas under their control to facilitate recruitment and information (Berman and Laitin 2008;Lewis 2020), whereas others provide public goods more widely to support statebuilding objectives (Heger and Jung 2017), particularly related to secessionism (Stewart 2018). Adjudication of disputes and conflict resolution are usually prominent components of wartime governance (Arjona 2016;Heger and Jung 2017;Ibáñez et al 2019;Loyle and Binningsbø 2018;Loyle 2020). Some studies have also documented the participation of armed groups in elections in wartime, both in direct ways by standing as a political party or putting forward their own candidates, or indirectly through backing, bribing, co-opting, and intimidating local and national politicians (Dunning 2011;Matanock 2017;Matanock and Staniland 2018).…”

Effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers under Israeli occupation in the West Bank

“…In the past decade, microeconomics of violent conflict has been identified as a new subfield of empirical development economics, and future studies are expected to contribute to peacebuilding, the development of postconflict institutions, the behavior of economic actors in conflict areas, and the role of emotions in decision-making [3]. In a study on the effects of conflict in Colombia, negative income shocks caused by the conflict had substantial impacts on agricultural production and welfare levels, forcing many poor households to resort to migration [4]. Another empirical analysis using panel data collected from Palestinian households before and after the 2014 Israeli war on the Gaza Strip showed that income destabilization resulting from the conflict reduced long-term household resilience [2].…”