Poverty and Civil War: Revisiting the evidence

Simeon Djankov () and Reynal-Querol, Marta

No 6980, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: A popular "stylized fact" is that poverty is a main determinant of civil war: several scholars have interpreted the correlation between the two as evidence supporting this claim. In this paper, we find that the relationship between poverty and civil war is spurious, and is accounted for by historical phenomena that jointly determine income evolution and conflict. In particular, the statistical association between poverty, as proxied by income per capita, and civil wars disappears once we include country fixed effects. Also, using cross-section data for 1960-2005, we find that once historical variables like European settler mortality rates and the population density in 1500 are included in civil war regressions, poverty does not have an effect on civil wars. These results are confirmed using longer time series from 1825 to 2000.

Keywords: Civil War; Income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dev
Date: 2008-10
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