OEINDRILA DUBE: A longstanding research interest of mine
is understanding how poverty and shocks to income
affect conflict in fragile and developing countries.
When I talk about price shocks, I'm
referring to large-scale changes in the price
of commodities that are produced in a given country.
So for example, in the context of Colombia,
we essentially used what we think
of as a natural experiment induced
by massive movements in commodity prices,
like coffee and oil, and very unique data
on conflict, to study this question.
The research approach that we used
was both innovative and data-driven
using the methodological approach
that lies at the crux of the Pearson Institute.
What we knew was countries that were
poor in terms of per capita income tended to have
higher risk of conflict.
What we didn't know is why that occurred
and if that actually had something to do with wages
or not.
In Colombia, we were particularly lucky
because I worked with a Colombian collaborator who
had event-based data.
It actually codes over 21,000 violent events
on the basis of over 21 major newspapers
and on the basis of oral reports in rural areas of Colombia
that then allow us to have a complete picture
of the violent events that are taking place there.
So we were able to look at two different types of income
effects.
For example, for agricultural commodities,
things like coffee, where people and labor is a large input
in the production process.
When there's something like a fall in the price of coffee
and someone like a coffee farmer in Colombia is made worse off,
they have the option of either producing coffee or potentially
joining an armed group, like a guerrilla group.
Coffee prices fell by almost 70% between 1997 and 2003.
And this led to 18% more guerrilla attacks
and 31% more paramilitary attacks
in the coffee-producing region relative
to non-coffee-producing region.
In contrast to that, for commodities
that might be capital intensive in the sense
that they use a lot of machinery in their production process,
like oil and gold, there we actually
expect this predation incentive.
This sort of rapacity effect, as we describe it, dominates.
For example, when you have an increase in the price of oil,
there's greater revenue that's collected from the government
in taxing that oil.
And paramilitary groups actually extort this revenue
from local mayors and municipal authorities.
Between 1988 and 2003, oil prices increased by over 130%,
and this actually led to 14% greater paramilitary attacks
in the oil-producing areas of Colombia.
The research that we're doing is highly
relevant for a number of countries and contexts
around the world.
Recent research has shown the results seem
to hold in sub-Saharan Africa in the context
of traditional civil conflict.
They're relevant for understanding
whether economic shocks affect participation
in drug gangs in places like Central America and Mexico.
They're relevant for thinking about
whether income plays a role in radicalization
and participation in religious violence, which is highly
relevant for the Middle East.
This ties to the mission of the Pearson Institute
because the Pearson Institute is all about
using data-driven approaches to both studying and mitigating
conflicts.
We're hopeful that if we conduct policy-relevant research,
we'll be able to generate insights that translate
into policies that have direct effects in terms of improving
people's lives and mitigating the circumstances of conflict
that they face.