Last updated on April 6, 2014
The abstract of a great new article by Jean-François Maystadt and Olivier Ecker in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics titled “Extreme Weather and Civil War: Does Drought Fuel Conflict in Somalia through Livestock Prices?”:
A growing body of evidence shows a causal relationship between extreme weather events and civil conflict incidence at the global level. We find that this causality is also valid for droughts and local violent conflicts in a within-country setting over a short time frame in the case of Somalia. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in drought intensity and length raises the likelihood of conflict by 62%. We also find that drought affects conflict through livestock price changes, establishing livestock markets as the primary channel of transmission in Somalia.
The emphasis is mine. And in case anyone wondered, I was not a reviewer for this paper (and generally, I try not blog about the papers I get to review…)