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We investigate whether civil wars have economic causes. The model is based on utility theory, rebels will conduct a civil war if the perceived benefits outweigh the costs of rebellion. Using probit and tobit models the propositions are tested empirically. Four variables, initial income, ethno-linguistic fractionalisation, the amount of natural resources, and initial population size are significant and strong determinants of the duration and the probability of civil wars. One important finding is that the relationship between civil wars and ethnic diversity is non-monotonic; highly fractionalised societies have no greater risk of experiencing a civil war than homogenous ones.

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armed conflicts that occurred in 1999, all but two took place within national boundaries. As an impediment to development, internal rebellion especially hurts the world’s poorest countries. What motivates civil wars? Greed or grievance?

Abstract: We investigate the impact of U.S. bombing on later economic development in Vietnam. The Vietnam War featured the most intense bombing campaign in military history and had massive humanitarian costs. We use a unique U.S. military dataset containing bombing intensity at the district level (N=584) to assess whether the war damage led to persistent local poverty traps. We compare the heavily bombed districts to other districts controlling for district demographic and geographic characteristics, and use an instrumental variable approach exploiting distance to the 17 th parallel demilitarized zone. U.S. bombing does not have negative impacts on local poverty rates, consumption levels, infrastructure, literacy or population density through 2002. This finding indicates that even the most intense bombing in human history did not generate local poverty traps in Vietnam.

A key distinction among theories of civil war is between those that are built upon motivation and those that are built upon feasibility. We analyze a comprehensive global sample of civil wars for the period 1965-2004 and subject the results to a range of robustness tests. The data constitute a substantial advance on previous work. We find that variables that are close proxies for feasibility have powerful consequences for the risk of a civil war. Our results substantiate the 'feasibility hypothesis ' that where civil war is feasible it will occur without reference to motivation. 2 1.

The increasing incidence of ethnic conflicts, and the much-publicized consequences of these conflicts, have attracted the interest of many researchers in the social sciences. Many studies have addressed directly the issue of ethnic di-versity and its effects on social conflicts and civil wars. Political scientists have stressed the importance of institutions in the attenuation or intensification of social conflict in ethnically divided societies. Recently economists have connected ethnic diversity with important eco-nomic phenomena like investment, growth, or the quality of government (William Easterly and

Civil wars are intricate social, political and psychological phenomena. However, economics can offer analytical insights which are useful alongside the more conventional approach of case-studies. Indeed, the policy conclusions drawn from economic analysis sometimes cast doubt on conventional advice. The use of economic theory and statistical evidence help to guard against excessive generalization from individual civil wars that inevitably suffer from both a surfeit of possible explanations and advocacy. Rigorous empirical study of civil war requires a precise definition of an imprecise and poorly observed phenomenon, a process that provides considerable room for legitimate disagreement. Hence, we begin by discussing the choices made in constructing the major data sets that describe the duration and severity of civil wars. Ideological, religious or ethnic differences are conventionally regarded as the causes of civil war. Economic theory explains civil war in the framework of incentives and constraints rather than ideologies or identities. This framework enables economists to analyse the distinctive feature of civil war: the emergence and persistence of a rebel army: some conditions make rebellion both more attractive and more feasible than others. Consistent with this emphasis on incentives and constraints, statistical studies suggest that economic characteristics, notably the level, growth and structure of income, are important influences on the risk of war. In addition to the explanation of the initiation and duration of civil wars, economic methods can also generate estimates of their costs and consequences. This is an essential step towards the cost-benefit analysis of policy interventions.

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