Growth, Democracy, and Civil War

22 Pages Posted: 7 Nov 2007

See all articles by Antonio Ciccone

Antonio Ciccone

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Markus Bruckner

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences

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Date Written: November 6, 2007

Abstract

Does economic growth affect the likelihood of civil war? Answering this question requires dealing with reverse causation. Our approach exploits that international commodity prices have a significant effect on the income growth of Sub-Saharan African countries. We show that lower income growth makes civil war more likely in non-democracies. This effect is significantly weaker in democracies; as a result, we find no link between growth and civil war in these countries. Our reduced form results also indicate that lower international commodity price growth has no effect on civil war in democracies, but raises the likelihood of civil war incidence and onset in non-democracies.

Keywords: Commodity prices, rainfall, income growth, civil war

JEL Classification: O0, P0, Q0

Suggested Citation

Ciccone, Antonio and Bruckner, Markus, Growth, Democracy, and Civil War (November 6, 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1028221 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1028221

Antonio Ciccone (Contact Author)

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences ( email )

Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27
Barcelona, 08005
Spain
+34 93 542 1669 (Phone)
+34 93 542 1746 (Fax)

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Markus Bruckner

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences ( email )

Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27
Barcelona, 08005
Spain

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