The Causes of Civil War

Djankov, Simeon ; Reynal-Querol, Marta

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSOLUTE VALUE;    ARMED CONFLICT;    CIVIL CONFLICT;    CIVIL WAR;    CIVIL WARS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4254
RP-ID  :  WPS4254

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The dominant hypothesis in theliterature that studies conflict is that poverty is the maincause of civil wars. The authors instead analyze the effectof institutions on civil war, controlling for income percapita. In their set up, institutions are endogenous andcolonial origins affect civil wars through their legacy oninstitutions. Their results indicate that institutions,proxied by the protection of property rights, rule of lawand the efficiency of the legal system, are a fundamentalcause of civil war. In particular, an improvement ininstitutions from the median value in the sample to the 75thpercentile is associated with a 38 percentage points'reduction in the incidence of civil wars. Moreover, onceinstitutions are included as explaining civil wars, incomedoes not have any effect on civil war, either directly or indirectly.