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Do Commodity Price Shocks Cause Armed Conflict? A Meta-Analysis of Natural Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2021

GRAEME BLAIR Open the ORCID record for GRAEME BLAIR [Opens in a new window] ,
DARIN CHRISTENSEN Open the ORCID record for DARIN CHRISTENSEN [Opens in a new window]  and
AARON RUDKIN Open the ORCID record for AARON RUDKIN [Opens in a new window]
GRAEME BLAIR*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
DARIN CHRISTENSEN*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
AARON RUDKIN*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
*
Graeme Blair, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, UCLA, graeme.blair@ucla.edu.
Darin Christensen, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA, darinc@luskin.ucla.edu.
Aaron Rudkin, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, UCLA, rudkin@ucla.edu.
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Abstract

Scholars of the resource curse argue that reliance on primary commodities destabilizes governments: price fluctuations generate windfalls or periods of austerity that provoke or intensify civil conflict. Over 350 quantitative studies test this claim, but prominent results point in different directions, making it difficult to discern which results reliably hold across contexts. We conduct a meta-analysis of 46 natural experiments that use difference-in-difference designs to estimate the causal effect of commodity price changes on armed civil conflict. We show that commodity price changes, on average, do not change the likelihood of conflict. However, there are cross-cutting effects by commodity type. In line with theory, we find price increases for labor-intensive agricultural commodities reduce conflict, while increases in the price of oil, a capital-intensive commodity, provoke conflict. We also find that price increases for lootable artisanal minerals provoke conflict. Our meta-analysis consolidates existing evidence, but also highlights opportunities for future research.

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Type
Letter
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American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 709 - 716
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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