Population Size and Civil Conflict Risk: Is there a Causal Link
Does an expansion of the population size expose nation states to a higher risk of suffering from civil conflict? Obtaining empirical evidence for a causal relationship is difficult due to reverse effects and omitted variable bias. This article addresses causality issues by using randomly occurring d...
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Published in | The Economic journal (London) Vol. 120; no. 544; pp. 535 - 550 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Oxford, UK
Oxford, UK : Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.05.2010
Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing Oxford University Press |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Does an expansion of the population size expose nation states to a higher risk of suffering from civil conflict? Obtaining empirical evidence for a causal relationship is difficult due to reverse effects and omitted variable bias. This article addresses causality issues by using randomly occurring drought as an instrumental variable to generate exogenous variation in population size for a panel of 37 Sub-Saharan countries over the period 1981-2004. Instrumental variable estimates yield that a 5% increase in population size raises the risk of civil conflict by around six percentage points. |
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Bibliography: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02352.x ark:/67375/WNG-SC5JDSCB-V istex:FF8506810D9ADA82617FA0AB5070942581F92D7C ArticleID:ECOJ2352 The article has benefited from discussion at the Second Riccardo Faini Doctoral Conference, the labour workshop at Pompeu Fabra, the CAEPS seminar at the Universitat de Barcelona, the 2009 CSAE conference on African development at the University of Oxford, the 2009 conference of the Royal Economic Society, the 2009 conference of the European Society of Population Economics, and the 2009 conference of the Econometric Society European Meeting. I am grateful to Antonio Ciccone, Marta Reynal-Querol, Roland Vaubel, Joachim Voth, two anonymous referees as well as seminar and conference participants for helpful comments and suggestions. The article has benefited from discussion at the Second Riccardo Faini Doctoral Conference, the labour workshop at Pompeu Fabra, the CAEPS seminar at the Universitat de Barcelona, the 2009 CSAE conference on African development at the University of Oxford, the 2009 conference of the Royal Economic Society, the 2009 conference of the European Society of Population Economics, and the 2009 conference of the Econometric Society European Meeting. I am grateful to Antonio Ciccone, Marta Reynal‐Querol, Roland Vaubel, Joachim Voth, two anonymous referees as well as seminar and conference participants for helpful comments and suggestions. ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0013-0133 1468-0297 |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02352.x |