The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia

Christopher Blattman, Oeindrila Dube, Samuel Bazzi, Matthew Gudgeon, Richard Peck and Robert Blair

No 13829, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Policymakers can take actions to prevent local conflict before it begins, if such violence can be accurately predicted. We examine the two countries with the richest available sub-national data: Colombia and Indonesia. We assemble two decades of finegrained violence data by type, alongside hundreds of annual risk factors. We predict violence one year ahead with a range of machine learning techniques. Models reliably identify persistent, high-violence hot spots. Violence is not simply autoregressive, as detailed histories of disaggregated violence perform best. Rich socio-economic data also substitute well for these histories. Even with such unusually rich data, however, the models poorly predict new outbreaks or escalations of violence. “Best case†scenarios with panel data fall short of workable early-warning systems.

Keywords: Conflict; Prediction; Indonesia; Colombia; Civil war; Machine learning; Forecasting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C52 C53 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-pay and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia (2022)
Working Paper: The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia (2019)
Working Paper: The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia (2019)
Working Paper: The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia (2019)
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