The Causes of Civil War

Djankov, Simeon; Reynal-Querol, Marta

The Causes of Civil War

2007

Djankov, Simeon | Reynal-Querol, Marta

The dominant hypothesis in the literature that studies conflict is that poverty is the main cause of civil wars. The authors instead analyze the effect of institutions on civil war, controlling for income per capita. In their set up, institutions are endogenous and colonial origins affect civil wars through their legacy on institutions. Their results indicate that institutions, proxied by the protection of property rights, rule of law and the efficiency of the legal system, are a fundamental cause of civil war. In particular, an improvement in institutions from the median value in the sample to the 75th percentile is associated with a 38 percentage points' reduction in the incidence of civil wars. Moreover, once institutions are included as explaining civil wars, income does not have any effect on civil war, either directly or indirectly.

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AGROVOC Keywords

civil conflict courts democracy disputes economic development economic growth epidemics expropriation gambia income income distribution land reform millennium development goals mortality natural resources political institutions political science political systems property rights regression analysis rule of law taxation

Bibliographic information

Publisher

World Bank, Washington, DC

Other Subjects

Significant differences; Per capita income; Poor; Monetary economics; Exogenous variable; Explanatory variables; Economic review; Peace research; Wars; Significant effect; Explanatory power; Income variables; Policy research working paper; Development policy; Explanatory variable; Income taxation; Positive effect; Differences in income; Opportunity cost; Peace; Poverty increases; Positive relationship; Economic shocks; Investigation; Endogenous variables; Sensitivity analysis; Endogenous variable; 0 hypothesis; Defense; Economic theory; Regional samples; Progress; Empirical literature; Private agents; Mortality rates; Economic stagnation; Empirical studies; Economic performance; Civil wars; Poor countries; Civil war; Conflict resolution; Political economy; Empirical results; Political change; Large populations; Dependent variable; Policy research; Large population; Absolute value; Negative relationship; Armed conflict

License

Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4254http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/World BankCC BY 3.0 Unported

Source

Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4254

In AGRIS since: 2014-09-15

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Links

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7416

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