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Chris Blattman on Whether Poverty Leads to Violence

Does poverty lead to violence? That is the question Chris Blattman addressed a few weeks ago at a conference held at New York University. Chris writes:

“I don’t yet have a firm answer to the question, but I am a skeptic.”

You can find links to a video of Chris’ talk and to his slides at the link above.

It is rare for academics to make a clear distinction between what they know for sure and what their opinion is on a given topic, so I appreciate Chris’ honesty in saying that he does not know. This also explains his tweeting about his skepticism when I posted about a possible causal relationship from food prices to political unrest in the Arab world.