Violent Conflict and Behavior: A Field Experiment in Burundi

Voors, Maarten; Nillesen, Eleonora; Bulte, Erwin; Lensink, Robert; Verwimp, Philip; Soest, Daan van

doi:10.1257/aer.102.2.941

Cited by 766 publications

(559 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Our results also have qualitatively similarities to the findings of Voors et al (2012) in their field experiment in post-conflict Burundi, which indicate greater risk-taking and trust after conflict. While we only have data on trust for the survey period and are unable to infer any increase in trust, social capital in the form of trust could have a possible role in determining livelihood decisions, especially when it comes to certain consumption and cropping decisions among the indigenous peoples of CHT.…”

Section: Production Decisions: Cropping Patternssupporting

confidence: 84%

Conflict and Livelihood Decisions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

Badiuzzaman

Murshed

2015

Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being

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We analyse rural household livelihood and child school enrolment decisions in the post-conflict setting of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh. What makes this paper innovative is the use of current subjective perceptions regarding the possibility of violence in the future and past actual experiences of violence in explaining household economic decision-making. Preferences are endogenous in line with behavioural economics. Regression results show that heightened subjective perceptions of future violence and past actual experiences of conflict influence current consumption and child enrolment and could encourage risky mixed crop cultivation. The trauma emanating from past experiences combined with current high perceptions of risk of violence may induce bolder and riskier behaviour in line with prospect theories of risk. Furthermore, a postconflict household-level Phoenix or economic revival factor may be in operation, based partially on greater within-group trust.

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Section: Production Decisions: Cropping Patternssupporting

confidence: 84%

Conflict and Livelihood Decisions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

Badiuzzaman

Murshed

2015

Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being

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“…Therefore, our ndings of the e ects of acute stress cannot be generalized to situations with long-lasting or chronic stress, such as the e ect of war or traumatic experience. As documented recently in Voors et al (2012), these events can, on the contrary, increase risk-seeking behavior. Apart from that, we acknowledge the fact that our ndings concerning women are limited due to the small sample size and to the fact that we did not ask for the phase of a menstrual cycle, since the stress-reaction may depend on it (Kajantie and Phillips, 2006).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Risk preferences under acute stress

Cahlíková

Cingl

2016

Exp Econ

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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: Many important decisions are made under stress and they often involve risky alternatives. There has been ample evidence that stress influences decision making in cognitive as well as in affective domains, but still very little is known about whether individual attitudes to risk change with exposure to acute stress. To directly evaluate the causal effect of stress on risk attitudes, we adopt an experimental approach in which we randomly expose participants to a psychosocial stressor in the form of a standard laboratory stress-induction procedure: the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups. Risk preferences are elicited using an incentive compatible task, which has been previously shown to predict risk-oriented behavior out of the laboratory. Using three different measures (salivary cortisol levels, heart rate and multidimensional mood questionnaire scores), we show that stress was successfully induced on the treatment group. Our main result is that acute psychosocial stress significantly increases risk aversion. The effect is mainly driven by males; men in our control group are less risk-averse than women, which is a standard result in the literature, but this difference almost disappears when under psychosocial stress. Terms of use: Documents in

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“…Voors et al (2012) investigate the effect of civil war violence (1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003) in rural Burundi on risk-preferences using incentivized experiments. They find that exposure makes individuals less risk averse over gains, but does not appear to impact preferences over losses.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most of the studies above, the risk preference elicitations focus only on measures of risk over gains where probabilities are known (the exceptions are Reynaud and Aubert (2014), Li et al (2011), andVoors et al (2012) which also look at risk over losses). However, the effect of experiencing a natural disaster (or other disruptive event) on a person's risk preferences is likely to be more complicated.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk, Loss, and Ambiguity Aversion after a Natural Disaster

et al. 2017

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We use survey and experimental methods to examine how residents' risk, loss, and ambiguity aversion are affected by a tornado event. We survey residents of the Oklahoma City area where a 2013 tornado resulted in massive damage and 24 fatalities. Our evaluation shows that risk aversion increased for those who were injured by the tornado. However, persons who lost a friend or neighbor were emboldened, experiencing reduced risk aversion. Ambiguity aversion increased for those who lost their residence or had property damage, and loss aversion increased for those who lost a friend or neighbor. Risk preferences of individual citizens in disasters are affected in important and intricate ways, and these alterations may influence choices such as how and when to rebuild private homes, businesses and invest in a region's critical public infrastructure.

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Violent Conflict and Behavior: A Field Experiment in Burundi

Cited by 766 publications

References 49 publications

Conflict and Livelihood Decisions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

Conflict and Livelihood Decisions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

Risk preferences under acute stress

Risk, Loss, and Ambiguity Aversion after a Natural Disaster

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