Climate and Conflict

Marshall Burke, Solomon M Hsiang and Edward Miguel

Department of Economics, Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley

Abstract: We review the emerging literature on climate and conflict. We consider multiple types of human conflict, including both interpersonal conflict, such as assault and murder, and intergroup conflict, including riots and civil war. We discuss key methodological issues in estimating causal relationships and largely focus on natural experiments that exploit variation in climate over time. Using a hierarchical meta-analysis that allows us to both estimate the mean effect and quantify the degree of variability across 55 studies, we find that deviations from moderate temperatures and precipitation patterns systematically increase conflict risk. Contemporaneous temperature has the largest average impact, with each 1σ increase in temperature increasing interpersonal conflict by 2.4% and intergroup conflict by 11.3%. We conclude by highlighting research priorities, including a better understanding of the mechanisms linking climate to conflict, societies' ability to adapt to climatic changes, and the likely impacts of future global warming.

Keywords: Economics; Applied Economics; Economic Theory; Peace; Justice and Strong Institutions; Climate Action; violence; crime; weather; econometrics; meta-analysis; Applied economics; Economic theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Climate and Conflict (2015)
Working Paper: Climate and Conflict (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt41d8p9fh

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