Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15574
Authors: Dominic Rohner; Mathias Thoenig
Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on civil conflict and development with an angle on the socio-economic consequences of violence and promising policies for fostering peace. We make four main points. First, one of the reasons why conflict is still often overlooked as key factor for development is that conflict costs are typically under-estimated, in particular for shadow costs of deterrence. Second, there are several types of war-traps that hold countries back -- both economically and politically. Third, for breaking these traps, policies must be calibrated to address jointly both poverty and social tensions, there being a strong macro complementarity between peace and development objectives. We document how "single-minded" policies that ignore this dual challenge can spectacularly fail, and discuss in depth a series of particularly promising policies. Fourth, we highlight the increasing potential of novel data collection methodologies and the need of policy evaluation tools in violent context.
Keywords: conflict; civil war; poverty; development policy
JEL Codes: D74; F51; H56; O10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| underestimation of conflict costs (D74) | ineffective policies (H53) |
| poverty (I32) | violence (D74) |
| violence (D74) | poverty (I32) |
| conflict costs (D74) | costly deterrence actions (K42) |
| poverty and social tensions (I32) | policy failure (H84) |
| better data (Y10) | enhanced causal inference (C32) |