Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan

One-fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by fragility, violence and conflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However, little is known about how firms respond to local changes in security, partly because of the diffi...

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Main Authors:	Blumenstock, Joshua, Ghani, Tarek, Herskowitz, Sylvan, Kapstein, Ethan B., Scherer, Thomas, Toomet, Ott
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2018
Subjects:	INSECURITY INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION MOBILE PHONES CONFLICT VIOLENCE STRATEGIC ADAPTATION
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/929591516198334068/Insecurity-and-industrial-organization-evidence-from-Afghanistan http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29211

id	okr-10986-29211
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-292112021-06-08T14:42:48Z Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan Blumenstock, Joshua Ghani, Tarek Herskowitz, Sylvan Kapstein, Ethan B. Scherer, Thomas Toomet, Ott INSECURITY INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION MOBILE PHONES CONFLICT VIOLENCE STRATEGIC ADAPTATION One-fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by fragility, violence and conflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However, little is known about how firms respond to local changes in security, partly because of the difficulty of measuring firm activity in these settings. This paper presents a novel methodology for observing private sector activity using mobile phone metadata. Using Afghanistan as the empirical setting, the analysis combines mobile phone data from over 2,300 firms with data from several other sources to develop and validate measures of firm location, size, and economic activity. Combining these new measures of firm activity with geocoded data on violent events, the paper investigates how the private sector in Afghanistan responds to insecurity. The findings indicate that firms reduce presence in districts following major increases in violence, that these effects persist for up to six months, and that larger firms are more responsive to violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential mechanisms, firms' strategic adaptations, and implications for policymakers. 2018-01-23T16:22:38Z 2018-01-23T16:22:38Z 2018-01 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/929591516198334068/Insecurity-and-industrial-organization-evidence-from-Afghanistan http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29211 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8301 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Asia Afghanistan
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	INSECURITY INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION MOBILE PHONES CONFLICT VIOLENCE STRATEGIC ADAPTATION
spellingShingle	INSECURITY INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION MOBILE PHONES CONFLICT VIOLENCE STRATEGIC ADAPTATION Blumenstock, Joshua Ghani, Tarek Herskowitz, Sylvan Kapstein, Ethan B. Scherer, Thomas Toomet, Ott Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan
geographic_facet	South Asia Afghanistan
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8301
description	One-fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by fragility, violence and conflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However, little is known about how firms respond to local changes in security, partly because of the difficulty of measuring firm activity in these settings. This paper presents a novel methodology for observing private sector activity using mobile phone metadata. Using Afghanistan as the empirical setting, the analysis combines mobile phone data from over 2,300 firms with data from several other sources to develop and validate measures of firm location, size, and economic activity. Combining these new measures of firm activity with geocoded data on violent events, the paper investigates how the private sector in Afghanistan responds to insecurity. The findings indicate that firms reduce presence in districts following major increases in violence, that these effects persist for up to six months, and that larger firms are more responsive to violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential mechanisms, firms' strategic adaptations, and implications for policymakers.
format	Working Paper
author	Blumenstock, Joshua Ghani, Tarek Herskowitz, Sylvan Kapstein, Ethan B. Scherer, Thomas Toomet, Ott
author_facet	Blumenstock, Joshua Ghani, Tarek Herskowitz, Sylvan Kapstein, Ethan B. Scherer, Thomas Toomet, Ott
author_sort	Blumenstock, Joshua
title	Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan
title_short	Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan
title_full	Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan
title_fullStr	Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan
title_full_unstemmed	Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan
title_sort	insecurity and industrial organization : evidence from afghanistan
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2018
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/929591516198334068/Insecurity-and-industrial-organization-evidence-from-Afghanistan http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29211
_version_	1764468771727081472

Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan

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