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

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

No 25980, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

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 fine-grained 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.

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-cmp and nep-sea
Note: DEV POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Published as Samuel Bazzi & Robert A. Blair & Christopher Blattman & Oeindrila Dube & Matthew Gudgeon & Richard Peck, 2022. "The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, vol 104(4), pages 764-779.

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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)
Working Paper: The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia (2019)
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