Electoral Violence and Supply Chain Disruptions in Kenya's Floriculture Industry

Christopher Ksoll, Rocco Macchiavello and Ameet Morjaria

No 29297, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Violent conflicts, particularly at election times in Africa, are a common cause of instability and economic disruption. This paper studies how firms react to electoral violence using the case of Kenyan flower exporters during the 2008 post-election violence as an example. The violence induced a large negative supply shock that reduced exports primarily through workers' absence and had heterogeneous effects: larger firms and those with direct contractual relationships in export markets suffered smaller production and losses of workers. On the demand side, global buyers were not able to shift sourcing to Kenyan exporters located in areas not directly affected by the violence nor to neighboring Ethiopian suppliers. Consistent with difficulties in insuring against supply-chain risk disruptions caused by electoral violence, firms in direct contractual relationships ramp up shipments just before the subsequent 2013 presidential election to mitigate risk.

JEL-codes: D22 D74 F14 O13 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-cta
Note: DEV POL
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published as Christopher Ksoll, Rocco Macchiavello, Ameet Morjaria; "Electoral Violence and Supply Chain Disruptions in Kenya's Floriculture Industry." The Review of Economics and Statistics 2022

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Related works:
Journal Article: Electoral Violence and Supply Chain Disruptions in Kenya's Floriculture Industry (2023)
Working Paper: Electoral violence and supply chain disruptions in Kenya's floriculture industry (2023)
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