conflict lecture 2

Question 1

what are the assumptions for a war with transfers?

Answer 1

• One country would like to go to war in the absence of transfers, but
  other would not.
• No commitment issues e.g., signing an enforceable treaty to commit
  peace.
• Leaders’ biases towards transfers are same as those towards gains
  and losses from war. That is, leader of losing country pays ai and
  leader of winning country a′i.

Question 2

what can commitment come about from?

Answer 2

Commitment can come as result of institutional structures or dynamic
incentives

Question 3

what are the three ways for which the other theories of armed conflict depart from standard economic theory?

Answer 3

• Property rights (neither well defined nor protected)
• Contract enforcement is not automatic
• Leaders can be replaced in different ways (other than the ballot box)

The main theoretical framework of this set up is a contest model.

Question 4

what is the main finding of the other theories of armed conflict?

Answer 4

the chance of winning the conflict increases with the effectiveness of fighting technology

Question 5

how is technology defined in the other theories of armed conflict?

Answer 5

it is broadly defined: skillful leaders, access to war technologies

Question 6

what is the main issue for armed conflict and what is the economic insight to this?

Answer 6

it is a participation problem, how do armed group leaders motivate citizens to soldier for their side. the economic insight is that participation in conflict increases as the opportunity cost of fighting decreases

Question 7

why does poverty increase the conflict?

Answer 7

the higher the wealth distribution, the more there is to fight over. in the equilibrium, there will be more fighting than production
the absence of resources makes production less attractive than fighting but it also means there is less to fight

Question 8

explain what occurs to the capital intensive sector when an income shock occurs according to Dal bo(2011)

Answer 8

in the capital intensive sector an income shock will increase the value of the controlling state, there will be no increase of wages, and there will be no increase of opportunity cost of fighting

Question 9

explain what occurs to the labour intensive sector when an income shock occurs according to Dal Bo (2011)?

Answer 9

in the labour intensive sector an income shock will:
decrease the value of the controlling state, there will be an increase in wages and an increase in the opportunity cost of fighting

Question 10

what are the two countering effect of increased income and conflict?

Answer 10

increasing income will increase the expected return of a conflict resulting in an increased likelihood of conflict however increasing income will also increase the return of production/working instead of fighting (less conflict)

Question 11

what are the two testable claims that clarify which income effect will dominate?

Answer 11

• Increase return to capital-intensive sector might increase war if it
  increases returns to owning capital more than wages
• Increase return to labor-intensive sector might decrease war if it
  increases return to labor more than to expropriating resources

Question 12

what is the opportunity cost effect for conflict?

Answer 12

higher wages may lower conflict by
reducing labor supplied to appropriation. Consistent with evidence that growth reduces the risk of civil war

Question 13

what is the rapicity effect for conflict?

Answer 13

rise in contestable income may increase violence by raising gains from appropriation

Question 14

what was the basic idea for how Dube and Vargas (2013) estimated the income effects?

Answer 14

focus on exogenous income shocks induced by movements in
world commodity prices, and estimate how these shocks have affected civil war dynamics in Colombia

Question 15

what shock did they use for the capital intensive sector?

Answer 15

Shocks to international oil price are shocks to expropriable sector

Question 16

what shock did they use for the labour intensive sector?

Answer 16

Shocks to international coffee price are shocks to labor-intensive
sector

Question 17

what policy can be put in place in order to avoid conflict when there is a shock to the labour intensive sector?

Answer 17

price stabilization schemes which place a floor on the price
of labor intensive commodities can help mitigate violence in the
wake of price shocks.

Question 18

what policy can be put in place in order to avoid conflict when there is a shock on the capital intensive sector?

Answer 18

since natural resource revenue is found to promote
rapacity, improved monitoring may prevent these funds from
fuelling conflict

Question 19

what was the question that Blatman and Annan(2016) attempted to solve??

Answer 19

Does economic opportunity reduce individual participation in
conflict?

Question 20

how did Blatman and Annan (2016) analyse economic opportunity effect on individual participation in conflict

Answer 20

they use interventionist policy by a non governmental organisation aimed at ex combatants from civil conflict in LIberia. this was a 3 month residential training where they were trained on agriculture, literacy and other skills with group and personal coaching and essential care provided. the graduates were then settled into a community of their choice where they were provided farmland and basic tools and supplies

Question 21

what were the results from Blatman and Annan(2016)

Answer 21

there was an increase in agricultural work but not completely stopped illicit activities. incomes increased. none participated in war but communicated ex commanders still attended recruitment meetings etc

Question 22

what was the question that NUnn and Qian (2014) examined?

Answer 22

is there an affect of humanitarian aid on conflict in recipient countries?

Question 23

what is the empiracal idea of the US food aid systems?

Answer 23

the US food aid system is a part of the system to keep farm prices high in the US. when wheat crop is good the government buys some wheat and gives it out as aid.
mostly the same countries will receive the aid

Question 24

what did the Nunn and Qian (2014) paper find out?

Answer 24

• US food aid promotes civil conflict on average in recipient countries.
• US food aid does not crowd out other forms of aid or aid from other
  donors.
• The aid does not trigger a new conflict, but fuel the existing
  conflicts.
• Food aid has no effect on conflict in countries without a recent
  history of civil conflict

Question 25

what is the definition of Schellings dilema?

Answer 25

The fear that the leaders of other countries might be aggressive (wants
war) would trigger the spiral of aggression

Question 26

what is the dovish bias in conflict?

Answer 26

two full democracies will have peace because the median voter can replace the leader

Question 27

what is a hawkish bias in conflict?

Answer 27

When facing a country that is not fully democratic, the median voter may support aggression out of fear and vote for an aggressive leader.

Question 28

what are the assumptions of the regimes and war model by Baliga et al (2011)

Answer 28

the leaders and citizens have different types
the median voter prefers to live in peace
there is a dovish bias
there is a hawkish bias
in a dictatorship, citizens preferences do not matter
two countries with dictatorships would be more aggresive than two democratic countries, but a dictator would be less aggresive than a democratic leader if the threat level increases

Question 29

what are the empiracle results of the Baliga et al (2011) paper?

Answer 29

Two full democracies are more peaceful than all other pairs of
regime types
* Two limited democracies are more likely to experience militarized
disputes than any other dyads
* As the environment becomes more hostile, democracies respond
more aggressively than other regime types
* The results are not neat for sub-sampled data (Before vs. after
WWII)