Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/123129 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 5486
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This research establishes that the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intrastate conflicts in the modern era reflect the long shadow of prehistory. Exploiting variations across national populations, it demonstrates that genetic diversity, as determined predominantly during the exodus of humans from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, has contributed significantly to the frequency, incidence, and onset of both overall and ethnic civil conflict over the last half-century, accounting for a large set of geographical and institutional correlates of conflict, as well as measures of economic development. Furthermore, the analysis establishes the significant contribution of genetic diversity to the intensity of social unrest and to the incidence of intragroup factional conflict. These findings arguably reflect the contribution of genetic diversity to the degree of fractionalization and polarization across ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups in the national population; the adverse influence of genetic diversity on interpersonal trust and cooperation; the contribution of genetic diversity to divergence in preferences for public goods and redistributive policies; and the potential impact of genetic diversity on economic inequality within a society.
Subjects: 
civil conflict
genetic diversity
fractionalization
polarization
interpersonal trust
preferences for public goods
economic inequality
JEL: 
D74
N30
N40
O11
O43
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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