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The economics of civil wars:A survey

Free interpretative arrangements; mostly from: C. Blattman and E. Miguel (2010),

Civil wars,Journal of Economic Literature, 48(1), 3-57.

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UCDP Armed Conflict Database

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Incidence of civil war/conflict by

duration: 1960-2006

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Incidence of civil war/conflict by per

capita GDP: 1960-2006

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Modeling: methodology

Group rationality and strategic behavior of

insurgents/counterinsurgents/state

Appropriation vs pro uction - contest successfunction:

We (economists) do not do this! Ohhh no!

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Modeling: Individual participation

Individual choice:

1. opportunity costs of fighting and expected benefits theoretical

implications for per capita income are uncertain2. individuals place inherent value on retaliation against an unjust state

Principal agent:

1. rebel leaders use material incentives/ethnic appeals to motivate citizens -

socialbetween the leader and the recruit2. threats and punishments as selective incentives, in the absence of a shared

social basis for mobilizing support - rationale for using coercion on lowproductivity recruits (especially children)

Coalition formation:

1. Along racial/ethnic groups to commit not to defect to winner

2. Along pre-existing networks for efficient informationtransmission/coordination of violent enforcement

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Modeling: War as rational conflict resolution

mechanism

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Correlations with civil war incidence:

Cross-country evidence

Correlation:

slow current growth

per capita income

Income shocks

natural resources/total exports

rough terrain

population size

Uncorrelated after conditioning:

ethnic fractionalization

income inequality

democracy

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Correlation/causation caveatExample: civil wars ---------- per capita income

1. low per capita income civil war (via smallopportunity cost of fighting)

1. civil war low per capita income (via destruction ofphysical, human, and social capital)

1. ethnic fragmentation low per capita income

civil war

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Natural experiments, IVs, better

measurement rainfall as IV for income shocks (yes! but possibly: via govt

resources and opportunity costs of farmers)

import-export price shocks as IV for income shocks (no) more precise measures of natural resources: oil, diamonds (yes!)

better theoretically grounded measures: income polarization forine ualit es! , ethnic/reli ious fractionalization ?

political institutions and governance from case studies: enclaveproduction, weakness of democratic institutions from polity IV, newvs established democracies, inclusiveness of political institutions,geographic concentration of power, state control over thegeographic periphery, direct taxation for state efficiency (unclear!)

related lhs variables: length (correlated with ethnicfractionalization), termination

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Descriptive factors from case studies external financing to sustain insurgencies

earlier state repression

persistent ethnic or elite class dominance

peripheral regions with weak central government

Institutional historical transformations: the nineteenth

century incorporation of most of Africa and Asia intoEuropean empires, and mid-twentieth century formation ofnation-states in those regions

contagion from neighboring countries

refugee flows foreign aid

Cold War interventions

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Missing (?)

models of spread of rebellion, social

(global/local) interactions, networks,

(across individuals, not countries and I am not talking

about Twitter and Facebook)

micro-data appropriate to test and estimate

these models

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Off-topic:

qualms between academic disciplines

Why didnt anybody complain about the

inability of political scientists to accurately

about economists and the 2008 financial

crisis?

Dedicato a Giovanni Sartori e ai suoi bravi