Abstract:
Information shapes people's narratives and, thus, collective action. The latter bears implications for both inter-group economic cooperation and conflict literature. In this paper, we examine the economic effects of ethnic conflicts under varying information levels as proxied by mobile Internet speeds. Our analysis of India from 2019 to 2023 yields that religious riots reduce night-time lights by 19.61% in the following year and mobile Internet speed amplifies the negative effects by approximately 1.2 - 5.1 percentage points. We posit that the mechanism is through spiteful narratives that are amplified by the faster Internet. The findings are robust to a battery of alternative specifications and tests.