Three essays on the empirics of conflict and resource mobilization in Africa

In a rapidly changing world, financing African economies remains a major challenge. The issueof resource mobilization is particularly alarming for countries in conflict. During periods ofconflict, the ability to mobilize resources is crucial for the survival of the state. Therefore, theaims of this thesis are to analyze the effect of conflicts on resource mobilization in Africa, throughthree chapters.Chapter 2 examines the link between migrant remittances, political stability, and domestic taxrevenues (both direct and indirect) from 2000 to 2019. The dependent variable represents directand indirect tax revenues, while the explanatory variable is the interaction between politicalstability and migrant remittances, measured as a percentage of GDP per capita. Using aninstrumental variables strategy, the results show that stable countries more effectively capturedomestic revenues from migrant remittances.Chapter 3 explores the effect of terrorism in neighboring countries on gold customs fraud in Africafrom 2000 to 2019, using ordinary least squares (OLS) and two-stage least squares (2SLS)estimators. The dependent variable is measured by gold customs fraud, while the variable ofinterest is neighboring country terrorism. The results indicate that a 1% increase in deaths relatedto terrorism in neighboring countries corresponds to a 3.65% increase in gold customs fraud.These results suggest that the rise in terrorist incidents in neighboring countries destabilizes bordersecurity and reduces customs performance.Chapter 4 analyzes the impact of mineral price variations on armed conflicts in Africa at the locallevel from 1997 to 2019. The explanatory variable is the fluctuation in world prices of 14 minerals,while the dependent variable represents armed conflicts (battles, violence against civilians,explosions and remote violence, protests, and riots). Using the ordinary least squares (OLS)method, the study reveals a positive relationship between armed conflicts and increasing mineralprices at the local level. Specifically, a doubling of mineral prices is associated with a 7.5% to3.8% increase in local conflicts. However, this link is notably attenuated when cells withdiscovered but unexploited mines are used as a control group, thus reducing the impact of mineralprices on conflicts by 20% to 40%.Keywords: Domestic Tax Revenues, Migrant Remittances, Political Stability, Customs Fraud,Terrorism, Neighborhood Effect, Mirror Analysis, Active Mines.