The Seasonality of Conflict
This paper investigates whether poor employment prospects of potential insurgents help to fuel conflict. The paper provides a new test of this "opportunity cost mechanism" using one of the largest shocks to labor demand in agricultural so...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/261391598906198836/The-Seasonality-of-Conflict http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34421 |
| Summary: | This paper investigates whether poor
employment prospects of potential insurgents help to fuel
conflict. The paper provides a new test of this
"opportunity cost mechanism" using one of the
largest shocks to labor demand in agricultural societies:
harvest. Theoretically, the paper shows that because
seasonal harvest shocks are temporary and anticipated, they
change opportunity costs while keeping the dynamic benefits
of fighting constant, yielding unbiased estimates even if
those benefits are unobserved. In contrast, many other
shocks in the conflict literature are persistent and
unanticipated, thus also varying the dynamic benefits of
fighting that confound estimates of the opportunity cost
mechanism. Empirically, the paper estimates of the effect of
harvest shocks on conflict intensity in Afghanistan, Iraq,
and Pakistan using subnational variation in the timing and
intensity of harvest driven by local climatic conditions.
Consistent with the opportunity cost mechanism, the results
show that the onset of harvest usually reduces the number of
insurgent attacks. |
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