The Role of Ethnic Characteristics in the Effect of Income Shocks on African Conflict
96 Pages Posted: 4 Aug 2018 Last revised: 24 Jun 2020
Date Written: April 29, 2020
Abstract
This paper disentangles the ethnic drivers of the effect of food-related income shocks on African conflict employing geolocalized information. We consider diversity and political ethnic variables, and several conflict definitions. We find that differentiating between organized armed-force and non-organized conflict can be more informative than between factor and output conflict. We show evidence that conflict is driven by the opportunity cost and state capacity mechanisms. Furthermore, ethnic cleavages have a large role in the transmission process of income shocks on organized armed-force conflict; whereas their role in non-organized violence is more limited.
Keywords: Conflict, Income Shocks, Food Security, Natural Resources
JEL Classification: Q54, E31, F25, N47
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation