Poverty and Civil War: Revisiting the Evidence

Simeon Djankov and Marta Reynal-Querol
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Marta Reynal-Querol: ICREA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, CEPR, and CESifo

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2010, vol. 92, issue 4, 1035-1041

Abstract: Previous research has interpreted the correlation between per capita income and civil war as evidence that poverty is a main determinant of conflict. 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 and civil wars disappears once we include country fixed effects. Also, using cross-section data for 1960 to 2000, 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. (c) 2010 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2010
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