Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/76773 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers No. 12-03
Publisher: 
University of Bern, Department of Economics, Bern
Abstract: 
There is an ongoing discussion especially among political scientists and economists whether and how climate variability affects civil conflicts and wars in developing countries. Given the predicted climatic changes, several studies argue that increasing temperatures or decreasing precipitation will lead to more conflicts in the future. This paper aims at linking the different strands of the literature by analyzing the causal mechanisms at work. We use short-term weather variability as well as long-term changes in Sub-Saharan Africa and find that climate (change) significantly affects agricultural output, to some extent also GDP, and has no robust direct effects on civil wars. Negative shocks in GDP, however, have the expected fostering effects on civil conflicts.
Subjects: 
civil conflict
climate change
economic shocks
Africa
JEL: 
D74
Q54
C36
N47
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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