IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bge/wpaper/1402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Caught in a Trap: Simulating the Economic Consequences of Internal Armed Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Joan Margalef
  • Hannes Mueller

Abstract

This study proposes a statistical model to capture the economic impact of the "conflict trap" phenomenon – a period of recurring outbreaks of internal armed conflict. The framework captures conflict dynamics through a discrete-time Markov process. We estimate the transition matrix and link the states to GDP per capita growth distributions through country fixed effects regressions. This allows for simulating the distribution of developmental effects of the conflict trap. We find that the trap has a large detrimental effect on long-term economic development, reaching a relative decline of GDP per capita of over 50% in the most affected countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Joan Margalef & Hannes Mueller, 2023. "Caught in a Trap: Simulating the Economic Consequences of Internal Armed Conflict," Working Papers 1402, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:1402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://bw.bse.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/1402-file.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley & Hannes Mueller, 2012. "Estimating the Peace Dividend: The Impact of Violence on House Prices in Northern Ireland," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 810-833, April.
    2. Nicolas Berman & Mathieu Couttenier & Dominic Rohner & Mathias Thoenig, 2017. "This Mine Is Mine! How Minerals Fuel Conflicts in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1564-1610, June.
    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. Rohner, Dominic & Mueller, Hannes & Schönholzer, David, 2017. "The Peace Dividend of Distance: Violence as Interaction Across Space," CEPR Discussion Papers 11897, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Tapsoba, Augustin, 2023. "The cost of fear: Impact of violence risk on child health during conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    3. Nicolás de Roux & Luis Martínez, 2021. "Inversión Perdida: Conflicto Civil y Crédito Agrícola en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 19622, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    4. Hannes Mueller & Andre Groger & Jonathan Hersh & Andrea Matranga & Joan Serrat, 2020. "Monitoring War Destruction from Space: A Machine Learning Approach," Papers 2010.05970, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    5. Gabriela Rubio, 2020. "¿Fin de la guerra, fin de la violencia? Evidencia del Acuerdo de Paz y homicidios en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 18228, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    6. Dominic Rohner & Mathias Thoenig, 2021. "The Elusive Peace Dividend of Development Policy: From War Traps to Macro Complementarities," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 111-131, August.
    7. Andrea Matranga & Joan Serrat & Jonathan Hersh & Andre Groeger & Hannes Mueller, 2021. "Monitoring War Destruction from Space Using Machine Learning," Working Papers 1257, Barcelona School of Economics.
    8. Augustin TAPSOBA, 2022. "Conflict prediction using Kernel density estimation," Working Paper 258fc89a-4ec3-4eef-a0ff-7, Agence française de développement.
    9. Dominic Rohner, 2022. "Conflict, Civil Wars and Human Development," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 22.08, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    10. Nicolás de Roux & Luis Roberto Martínez, 2021. "Forgone Investment: Civil Conflict and Agricultural Credit in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 19236, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    11. Sonin, Konstantin & Wright, Austin L., 2018. "Rebel Capacity and Combat Tactics," CEPR Discussion Papers 13155, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Bazillier, Remi & Girard, Victoire, 2020. "The gold digger and the machine. Evidence on the distributive effect of the artisanal and industrial gold rushes in Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Lewkowicz, Jacek & Woźniak, Michał & Wrzesiński, Michał, 2022. "COVID-19 and erosion of democracy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    14. Jørgen Juel Andersen & Frode Martin Nordvik & Andrea Tesei, 2022. "Oil Price Shocks and Conflict Escalation: Onshore versus Offshore," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(2), pages 327-356, February.
    15. Thoenig, Mathias & Eberle, Ulrich J. & Rohner, Dominic, 2020. "Heat and Hate: Climate Security and Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 15542, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio & Özak, Ömer, 2023. "(De facto) Historical Ethnic Borders and Contemporary Conflict in Africa," MPRA Paper 116868, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Ciccone, Antonio, 2018. "International Commodity Prices and Civil War Outbreak: New Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond," CEPR Discussion Papers 12625, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Diakonova, Marina & Molina, Luis & Mueller, Hannes & Pérez, Javier J. & Rauh, Christopher, 2024. "The information content of conflict, social unrest and policy uncertainty measures for macroeconomic forecasting," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 5(4).
    19. Trojanek, Radoslaw & Gluszak, Michal, 2022. "Short-run impact of the Ukrainian refugee crisis on the housing market in Poland," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    20. Dagnelie, Olivier & Luca, Giacomo Davide De & Maystadt, Jean-François, 2018. "Violence, selection and infant mortality in Congo," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 153-177.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic growth; Economic development; armed conflict; conflict trap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bge:wpaper:1402. 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: Bruno Guallar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bargses.html .

    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.