IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/joupea/v49y2012i1p147-162.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate-related natural disasters, economic growth, and armed civil conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Drago Bergholt

    (Department of Economics, Norwegian Business School (BI))

  • Päivi Lujala

    (Department of Economics & Department of Geography, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) & Centre for the Study of Civil War, PRIO)

Abstract

Global warming is expected to make the climate warmer, wetter, and wilder. It is predicted that such climate change will increase the severity and frequency of climate-related disasters like flash floods, surges, cyclones, and severe storms. This article uses econometric methods to study the consequences of climate-induced natural disasters on economic growth, and how these disasters are linked to the onset of armed civil conflict either directly or via their impact on economic growth. The results show that climate-related natural disasters have a negative effect on growth and that the impact is considerable. The analysis of conflict onset shows that climate-related natural disasters do not increase the risk of armed conflict. This is also true when we instrument the change in GDP growth by climatic disasters. The result is robust to inclusion of country and time fixed effects, different estimation techniques, and various operationalization of the disasters measure, as well as for conflict incidence and war onset. These findings have two major implications: if climate change increases the frequency or makes weather-related natural disasters more severe, it is an economic concern for countries susceptible to these types of hazards. However, our results suggest – based on historical data – that more frequent and severe climate-related disasters will not lead to more armed conflicts through their effects on GDP growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Drago Bergholt & Päivi Lujala, 2012. "Climate-related natural disasters, economic growth, and armed civil conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 49(1), pages 147-162, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:49:y:2012:i:1:p:147-162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/49/1/147.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vally Koubi & Thomas Bernauer & Anna Kalbhenn & Gabriele Spilker, 2012. "Climate variability, economic growth, and civil conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 49(1), pages 113-127, January.
    2. Joseph G. Haubrich & Andrew W. Lo, 2013. "Quantifying Systemic Risk," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number haub10-1, March.
    3. Conor Devitt & Richard SJ Tol, 2012. "Civil war, climate change, and development: A scenario study for sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 49(1), pages 129-145, January.
    4. Nils Petter Gleditsch, 2012. "Whither the weather? Climate change and conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 49(1), pages 3-9, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Exenberger Andreas & Pondorfer Andreas, 2013. "Climate Change and the Risk of Mass Violence: Africa in the 21st Century," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 381-392, December.
    2. Busby, Joshua & Smith, Todd G. & Krishnan, Nisha & Wight, Charles & Vallejo-Gutierrez, Santiago, 2018. "In harm's way: Climate security vulnerability in Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 88-118.
    3. Gartzke Erik & Böhmelt Tobias, 2015. "Climate and Conflict: Whence the Weather?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(4), pages 445-451, December.
    4. Martin-Shields, Charles P. & Stojetz, Wolfgang, 2019. "Food security and conflict: Empirical challenges and future opportunities for research and policy making on food security and conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 150-164.
    5. Suthan Krishnarajan, 2019. "Crisis? What crisis? Measuring economic crisis in political science," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1479-1493, May.
    6. H. Buhaug & J. Nordkvelle & T. Bernauer & T. Böhmelt & M. Brzoska & J. Busby & A. Ciccone & H. Fjelde & E. Gartzke & N. Gleditsch & J. Goldstone & H. Hegre & H. Holtermann & V. Koubi & J. Link & P. Li, 2014. "One effect to rule them all? A comment on climate and conflict," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 391-397, December.
    7. Gerdis Wischnath & Halvard Buhaug, 2014. "On climate variability and civil war in Asia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 709-721, February.
    8. Ole Theisen & Nils Gleditsch & Halvard Buhaug, 2013. "Is climate change a driver of armed conflict?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 613-625, April.
    9. Giorgos Kallis & Christos Zografos, 2014. "Hydro-climatic change, conflict and security," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 69-82, March.
    10. Büyükşahin, Bahattin & Robe, Michel A., 2014. "Speculators, commodities and cross-market linkages," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-70.
    11. Jean-François Maystadt & Margherita Calderone & Liangzhi You, 2015. "Local warming and violent conflict in North and South Sudan," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 649-671.
    12. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    13. Viral V. Acharya & Hamid Mehran & Anjan V. Thakor, 2016. "Caught between Scylla and Charybdis? Regulating Bank Leverage When There Is Rent Seeking and Risk Shifting," Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 36-75.
    14. Dobes Leo & Jotzo Frank & Stern David I., 2014. "The Economics of Global Climate Change: A Historical Literature Review," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 281-320, December.
    15. Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & Castells-Quintana, David & McDermott, Thomas K. J., 2017. "Geography, institutions and development: a review ofthe long-run impacts of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Herculano, Miguel C., 2018. "The role of contagion in the transmission of financial stress," ESRB Working Paper Series 81, European Systemic Risk Board.
    17. Chris Jeffords & Alexi Thompson, 2016. "An empirical analysis of fatal crimes against environmental and land activists," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(2), pages 827-842.
    18. Parry, Luke & Radel, Claudia & Adamo, Susana B. & Clark, Nigel & Counterman, Miriam & Flores-Yeffal, Nadia & Pons, Diego & Romero-Lankao, Paty & Vargo, Jason, 2019. "The (in)visible health risks of climate change," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    19. François Gemenne & Jon Barnett & W. Adger & Geoffrey Dabelko, 2014. "Climate and security: evidence, emerging risks, and a new agenda," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 1-9, March.
    20. Breckner, Miriam & Sunde, Uwe, 2019. "Temperature extremes, global warming, and armed conflict: new insights from high resolution data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:joupea:v:49:y:2012:i:1:p:147-162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.prio.no/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.