Insecurity and Industrial Organization : Evidence from Afghanistan

Blumenstock, Joshua ; Ghani, Tarek ; Herskowitz, Sylvan ; Kapstein, Ethan B. ; Scherer, Thomas ; Toomet, Ott

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: INSECURITY;    INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION;    MOBILE PHONES;    CONFLICT;    VIOLENCE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8301
RP-ID  :  WPS8301

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

One-fifth of the world's populationlives in countries affected by fragility, violence andconflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However,little is known about how firms respond to local changes insecurity, partly because of the difficulty of measuring firmactivity in these settings. This paper presents a novelmethodology for observing private sector activity usingmobile phone metadata. Using Afghanistan as the empiricalsetting, the analysis combines mobile phone data from over2,300 firms with data from several other sources to developand validate measures of firm location, size, and economicactivity. Combining these new measures of firm activity withgeocoded data on violent events, the paper investigates howthe private sector in Afghanistan responds to insecurity.The findings indicate that firms reduce presence indistricts following major increases in violence, that theseeffects persist for up to six months, and that larger firmsare more responsive to violence. The paper concludes with adiscussion of potential mechanisms, firms' strategicadaptations, and implications for policymakers.