Winter is Coming: The Long-Run Effects of Climate Change on Conflict, 1400-1900

Nancy Qian, Murat Iyigun and Nathan Nunn

No 11760, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper investigates the long-run effects of climate change on conflict by examining cooling from 1400-1900 CE, a period that includes most of the Little Ice Age. We construct a geo-referenced and digitized database of conflicts in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East from 1400-1900, which we merge with historical temperature data. We first show that during this time, cooling is associated with increased conflict. Then, turning to the dynamics of cooling, we allow the effects of cooling over a fifty-year period to depend on the extent of cooling during the preceding fifty-year period. We find that the effect of cooling on conflict is significantly larger if the same location experienced cooling during the preceding period. We interpret this as evidence that the adverse effect of climate change intensifies with its duration.

Keywords: Environment; Development; Political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-evo and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11760 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Winter is Coming: The Long-Run Effects of Climate Change on Conflict, 1400-1900 (2017)
Working Paper: Winter is Coming: The Long-Run Effects of Climate Change on Conflict, 1400-1900 (2017)
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:cpr:ceprdp:11760

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11760

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().