Does inequality make us rebel? A renewed theoretical model applied to South Mexico

Jean-François Maystadt

No 2007081, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: Since Collier and Hoeffler (1998, 2004), it has been supported that inequality, measured at national level, does not affect the risk of conflict. Based on a renewed theoretical framework, the purpose of the paper is to explore the role of inequality in localized conflicts. We argue that previous findings might be biased by the myopic nature of cross-country analysis. Consistently with the model, Probit estimations indicate that income inequality measured at municipal level was significant in motivating people to support the rebellion in South Mexico. At this geographical level, we also find an increase in income per capita could exacerbate the risk of conflict in a situation where the rebel leader would have greater incentives to loot the local production compared to the opportunity cost associated with fighting for the worker.

Keywords: rebellion; inequality; income; Mexico (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C35 O18 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-11-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2007.html (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Does inequality make us rebel ? A renewed theoretical model applied to South Mexico (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2007081

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) Voie du Roman Pays 34, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alain GILLIS ().