Working Paper: NBER ID: w23056
Authors: Eoin McGuirk; Marshall Burke
Abstract: We study the impact of plausibly exogenous global food price shocks on local violence across the African continent. In food-producing areas, higher food prices reduce conflict over the control of territory (what we call "factor conflict") and increase conflict over the appropriation of surplus ("output conflict"). We argue that this difference arises because higher prices raise the opportunity cost of soldiering for producers, while simultaneously inducing net consumers to appropriate increasingly valuable surplus as their real wages fall. In regions without crop agriculture, higher food prices increase both factor conflict and output conflict. We validate local-level findings on output conflict using geocoded survey data on interpersonal theft and violence against commercial farmers and traders. Ignoring the distinction between producer and consumer effects leads to attenuated estimates. Our findings help reconcile a growing but ambiguous literature on the economic roots of conflict.
Keywords: food prices; conflict; Africa; economic shocks; violence
JEL Codes: D74; H56; O10; O12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Higher food prices (Q11) | Reduce factor conflict (D74) |
| Higher food prices (Q11) | Increase output conflict (D74) |
| Higher food prices (Q11) | Increase duration of conflict (D74) |
| Negative income shocks (F61) | Increase risk of violent conflict events (D74) |
| Higher food prices (Q11) | Increase factor conflict in regions without crop agriculture (Q34) |
| Higher food prices (Q11) | Increase output conflict in regions without crop agriculture (Q34) |