IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/30410811.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

US Food Aid and Civil Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Qian, Nancy
  • Nunn, Nathan

Abstract

We study the effect of U.S. food aid on conflict in recipient countries. Our analysis exploits time variation in food aid shipments due to changes in U.S. wheat production and cross-sectional variation in a country's tendency to receive any U.S. food aid. According to our estimates, an increase in U.S. food aid increases the incidence and duration of civil conflicts, but has no robust effect on inter-state conflicts or the onset of civil conflicts. We also provide suggestive evidence that the effects are most pronounced in countries with a recent history of civil conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Qian, Nancy & Nunn, Nathan, 2014. "US Food Aid and Civil Conflict," Scholarly Articles 30410811, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:30410811
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/30410811/faidconf_20130806_final_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/30410811/faidconf_20130806_final_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alesina, Alberto & Dollar, David, 2000. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 33-63, March.
    2. Oeindrila Dube & Juan F. Vargas, 2013. "Commodity Price Shocks and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Colombia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1384-1421.
    3. de Ree, Joppe & Nillesen, Eleonora, 2009. "Aiding violence or peace? The impact of foreign aid on the risk of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 301-313, March.
    4. James Levinsohn & Margaret McMillan, 2007. "Does Food Aid Harm the Poor? Household Evidence from Ethiopia," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization and Poverty, pages 561-598, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Abdulai, Awudu & Barrett, Christopher B. & Hoddinott, John, 2005. "Does food aid Really have disincentive effects? New evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1689-1704, October.
    6. Judson, Ruth A. & Owen, Ann L., 1999. "Estimating dynamic panel data models: a guide for macroeconomists," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 9-15, October.
    7. Ilyana Kuziemko & Eric Werker, 2006. "How Much Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(5), pages 905-930, October.
    8. Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian, 2014. "US Food Aid and Civil Conflict," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1630-1666, June.
    9. Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian, 2014. "The Determinants of Food-Aid Provisions to Africa and the Developing World," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume IV: Sustainable Growth, pages 161-178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lotta Themnér & Peter Wallensteen, 2011. "Armed Conflict, 1946-2010," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(4), pages 525-536, July.
    11. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    12. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    13. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    14. Ball, Richard & Johnson, Christopher, 1996. "Political, Economic, and Humanitarian Motivations for PL 480 Food Aid: Evidence from Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(3), pages 515-537, April.
    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. Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian, 2012. "Aiding Conflict: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Civil War," NBER Working Papers 17794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    3. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    4. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food Aid and Violent Conflict: A Review of Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 16574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Nancy Qian, 2015. "Making Progress on Foreign Aid," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 277-308, August.
    6. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    7. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," PSE Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    8. Jan Fałkowski, 2018. "U.S. food aid and American exports to recipient countries during the Cold War," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 659-668, September.
    9. Roberto Ezcurra & Beatriz Manotas, 2017. "Is there a link between globalisation and civil conflict?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(12), pages 2592-2610, December.
    10. Lu, Yifan & Yamazaki, Satoshi, 2023. "Fish to fight: Does catching more fish increase conflicts in Indonesia?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    11. Richard Bluhm & Martin Gassebner & Sarah Langlotz & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "Fueling conflict? (De)escalation and bilateral aid," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 244-261, March.
    12. Alex Dickson & Ian A MacKenzie & Petros G Sekeris, 2018. "The role of markets and preferences on resource conflicts," Working Papers 1819, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    13. Tierney, Michael J. & Nielson, Daniel L. & Hawkins, Darren G. & Roberts, J. Timmons & Findley, Michael G. & Powers, Ryan M. & Parks, Bradley & Wilson, Sven E. & Hicks, Robert L., 2011. "More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1891-1906.
    14. Magesan, Arvind & Swee, Eik Leong, 2018. "Out of the ashes, into the fire: The consequences of U.S. weapons sales for political violence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 133-156.
    15. Lis, Piotr, 2018. "The impact of armed conflict and terrorism on foreign aid: A sector-level analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 283-294.
    16. Thiemo Fetzer & Samuel Marden, 2017. "Take What You Can: Property Rights, Contestability and Conflict," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(601), pages 757-783, May.
    17. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    18. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    19. Ang, James B. & Gupta, Satyendra Kumar, 2018. "Agricultural yield and conflict," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 397-417.
    20. Aurore Gary & Mathilde Maurel, 2015. "Donors’ Policy Consistency and Economic Growth," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 511-551, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

    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:hrv:faseco:30410811. 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.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.