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Political violence and economic activity in Bangladesh: A robust empirical investigation

Author

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  • Christophe Muller

    (Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques)

  • Ahmed Yousuf

    (Aix Marseille Université Économiques)

Abstract

Using daily and monthly level nightlight products from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Black Marble suite (NASA and Administration (2199)) and extrapolating hartal-related violence data with a keyword search from the geocoded Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) database, we investigate the impact of such events on economic activity in Bangladesh. We focus our investigation first at daily level and secondly at monthly level. At daily level, we utilize autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) estimation to factor in the deeply autoregressive nature of daily nightlights, to identify immediate (within-day) effects from hartals, individually for key subdistricts. At the monthly level, to factor in the emergent consequent spatial dependence, we analyze countrywide dynamics using a split-panel jackknife bias-corrected maximum-likelihood estimations to see overall effects from lagged hartal event counts. At daily level, over 2012–21, in the capital Dhaka, we find that daily hartals have an immediate statistically significant impact of -0.9 percent on daily nightlights. However, this effect does not hold across all subdistricts and only does so for a select number of subdistricts. At the monthly level, we find evidence of statistically significant countrywide effects of 1.6 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Christophe Muller & Ahmed Yousuf, 2023. "Political violence and economic activity in Bangladesh: A robust empirical investigation," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2023 06, Stata Users Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:fsug23:06
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Doll, Christopher N.H. & Muller, Jan-Peter & Morley, Jeremy G., 2006. "Mapping regional economic activity from night-time light satellite imagery," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 75-92, April.
    2. Yu, Jihai & de Jong, Robert & Lee, Lung-fei, 2008. "Quasi-maximum likelihood estimators for spatial dynamic panel data with fixed effects when both n and T are large," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 118-134, September.
    3. Gibson, John & Olivia, Susan & Boe-Gibson, Geua & Li, Chao, 2021. "Which night lights data should we use in economics, and where?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    4. Shonchoy, Abu S. & Tsubota, Kenmei, 2015. "Economic impact of political protests (strikes) on manufacturing firms : evidence from Bangladesh," IDE Discussion Papers 523, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    5. Reshad N. Ahsan & Kazi Iqbal, 2016. "How Do Exporters Cope With Violence? Evidence from Political Strikes in Bangladesh," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 2025, The University of Melbourne.
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