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Summary Chapter 4 - Civil wars
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4. Civil wars (G. De Luca)1. Are civil wars relevant for development economics? Why bother?
YES!!!
No major development economics textbook considers conflict…
Vast majority of current and recent civil wars are taking place in low income countries! Countries in the
“bottom billion” face a risk of 1/6 to fall into civil war in any 5 year period! Poverty rates average 54%
compared with 22% for low-income countries as a whole. They are on average poorer if they had a civil war!!
None of these countries (that had/have a civil war) has yet achieved a single Millennium Development Goal
(campaign to end poverty by 2015).
Civil wars and MDGs:
- X-asis has some MDGs: undernourished, impoverished, primarty-not enrolled, secondary-not enrolled,
infant deaths, under 5 deaths, births unattended, HIV/AIDS, access to improved water, access to
improved sanitation.
- Countries that are currently in a civil war are compared to countries that are recovering from civil war
as compared to non-FCS countries (low-income countries that have no civil war)
- The low-income countries that have no civil war are set to 1. So compare the other 2 with this.
- Undernourished: countries that are currently in a civil war, have double and more the amount of
undernourished.
- Impoverished: higher if you have a civil war and even higher if you are recovering from a civil war.
- Primary school-not enrolled: in countries with a conflict, it is 3 times as large.
- Result the first 2 bars have a higher problem as compared to other low income countries in general!
,Civil war and infant mortality:
- Focus on 1 of the goals: reduction of infant mortality.
- Countries manage to decrease infant mortality around the world in general. If you look at countries
with conflicts (red) and low-income countries without conflicts internally (grey), then you see that the
trends are increasing. But the grey line is steeper. The gap increases over time. So war has deep effects
on the health of kids!
Burundi vs. Burkina Faso:
- History of 2 African countries
- Both countries gain independence in 1960.
- In the beginning, the GDP/capita was comparable (BF a bit richer but they have a comparable starting
point).
- Over time, both countries experienced a constant increase in their income/capita, this gap decreased.
But in the early 90s, the 2 curves diverged from each other. BF starts having a steeper slope, Burundi
had a sharp drop and stagnated.
- Burundi had a civil war (red bars give the battle deaths), that’s why GDP/capita drops (to the same
level as in the 60s) and then there was a long stagnation. Even when the intensity of the civil war
reduces towards the end of the period (early 2000), there is an important lag for the income/capita to
become again increasing.
- So conflict is development in reverse!!
, 2. What drives civil wars?
- You have options: you can join a rebel group (you have the risk to go to jail) OR you can have a
degree/career and a family, you would rather want the left side.
Violence as a rational decision:
- Incentives can change!
- You can choose between joining a rebel group OR having a poor life where you depend on others. The
likelihood that you are caught and have to go to jail is much lower because of weak institutions (the
inability of formal authorities to enforce laws)! If you have strong institutions, it is way more likely to
get caught and spend your whole life in jail.
- We increased the expected benefit of joining a rebel group (because it’s less likely to get caught) and
decreased the opportunity cost (the benefit/cost of doing something else)!! So these 3 things
(opportunity cost decrease, expected benefit increase, weak institutions) shape the decisions of
joining a rebel group!! The decision is much less obvious!
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