IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v96y2014i5p949-966.html

Opium for the Masses? Conflict-Induced Narcotics Production in Afghanistan

Author

Listed:
  • Jo Thori Lind

    (University of Ohio)

  • Karl Ove Moene

    (University of Oslo)

  • Fredik Willumsen

    (University of Oslo)

Abstract

To explain the rise in Afghan opium production, we explore how rising conflicts change the incentives of farmers. Conflicts make illegal opportunities more profitable as they increase the perceived lawlessness and destroy infrastructure crucial to alternative crops. Exploiting a unique data set, we show that Western hostile casualties, our proxy for conflict, have a strong impact on subsequent local opium production. Using the period after the planting season as a placebo test, we show that conflict has a strong effect before but no effect after planting, indicating causality.

Suggested Citation

  • Jo Thori Lind & Karl Ove Moene & Fredik Willumsen, 2014. "Opium for the Masses? Conflict-Induced Narcotics Production in Afghanistan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 949-966, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:96:y:2014:i:5:p:949-966
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00418
    File Function: link to full text pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Juan Camilo Castillo & Daniel Mejía & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "Scarcity without Leviathan: The Violent Effects of Cocaine Supply Shortages in the Mexican Drug War," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 269-286, May.
    2. Vincenzo Bove & Leandro Elia, 2013. "Drugs and Violence in Afghanistan: A Panel Var With Unobserved Common Factor Analysis," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(6), pages 535-554, December.
    3. Mitra, Anirban & Mitra, Shabana, 2020. "Redistribution of Economic Resources due to Conflict: The Maoist Uprising in Nepal," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 578-604.
    4. Galdo Virgilio & Acevedo Gladys Lopez & Rama Martin, 2021. "Conflict and the composition of economic activity in Afghanistan," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, January.
    5. Noury, Abdul G. & Speciale, Biagio, 2016. "Social constraints and women's education: Evidence from Afghanistan under radical religious rule," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 821-841.
    6. Botero Degiovanni, Hernan, 2013. "The Effects of Drug Enforcement on Violence in Colombia 1999-2010: A Spatial Econometric Approach," MPRA Paper 49459, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Wigton-Jones, Evan, 2021. "The unintended harms of infrastructure: Opium and road construction in Afghanistan," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 405-424.
    8. Greenfield, Victoria A. & Bond, Craig A. & Crane, Keith, 2017. "A household model of opium-poppy cultivation in Afghanistan," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 741-761.
    9. Dominic Rohner, 2025. "Conflict," CESifo Working Paper Series 12035, CESifo.
    10. Timothy Allen Carter & Daniel Jay Veale, 2013. "Weather, terrain and warfare: Coalition fatalities in Afghanistan," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(3), pages 220-239, July.
    11. Sarah Langlotz, 2021. "Foreign Interventions and Community Cohesion in Times of Conflict," HiCN Working Papers 352, Households in Conflict Network.
    12. Claudio Deiana & Ludovica Giua & Roberto Nisticò, 2024. "Opium Price Shocks and Prescription Opioids in the USA," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(3), pages 449-484, June.
    13. Ciarli, Tommaso & Kofol, Chiara & Menon, Carlo, 2015. "Business as unusual. An explanation of the increase of private economic activity in high-conflict areas in Afghanistan," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65015, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Barrett, Philip, 2022. "The fiscal cost of conflict: Evidence from Afghanistan 2005–2017," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    15. François Libois, 2016. "Households in Times of War : Adaptation Strategies during the Nepal Civil War," Working Papers 1603, University of Namur, Department of Economics.
    16. Gehring, Kai & Langlotz, Sarah & Kienberger, Stefan, 2018. "Stimulant or depressant? Resource-related income shocks and conflict," Working Papers 0652, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tpr:restat:v:96:y:2014:i:5:p:949-966. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.