Abstract:
We study the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), a global initiative to prevent conflict diamonds – diamonds that originate from conflict zones – from entering the world market. Exploiting grid cell-level variation in the suitability for extracting alluvial diamonds, we compare grid cells with and without this suitability before and after the introduction of the KPCS in 2002. We find that the KPCS led to a permanent and significant reduction in violent conflict in Africa.
