A new GLO Discussion Paper documents that in Africa both the intensive and extensive margins of contemporary conflict are higher close to historical ethnic borders.

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GLO Discussion Paper No. 697, 2020

Borderline Disorder: (De facto) Historical Ethnic Borders and Contemporary Conflict in Africa – Download PDF
by Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio & Özak, Ömer

GLO Fellow Ömer Özak

Author Abstract: We explore the effect of historical ethnic borders on contemporary conflict in Africa. We document that both the intensive and extensive margins of contemporary conflict are higher close to historical ethnic borders. Exploiting variations across artificial regions within an ethnicity’s historical homeland and a theory-based instrumental variable approach, we find that regions crossed by historical ethnic borders have 27 percentage points higher probability of conflict and 7.9 percentage points higher probability of being the initial location of a conflict. We uncover several key underlying mechanisms: competition for agricultural land, population pressure, cultural similarity and weak property rights.

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GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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