Let me inform you of the following research seminar.

Date:  August 3 (Wednesday), 2022
Time:  15:15--16:45
Venue:  Building 11, Room 321 & ZOOM (HyFlex)
Speaker:  Shinji Okazaki (University of Tokyo)
Organizer:  Yuki Higuchi
Language:  English

Title:  Transport Investment and Conflict: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract:  This study investigates the impact of transport investment on the incidence of conflict by combining georeferenced data on the evolution of transport networks in sub-Saharan Africa with geocoded data on conflict events from 1990 to 2014. To address the issue of the endogenous placement of networks, I exploit the variation of historical road length and its interaction with the distance to the national capital. The estimation results show that the extension of the paved road network on average decreases the episodes of conflict at the local level, while a great deal of heterogeneity is observed depending on the political strength of the ethnic groups residing in the region. To elucidate the mechanism, I construct additional measures including group-specific market access, guided by a theoretical framework of ethnic conflict across space. The mechanism analysis suggests that the transport investment plays a key role in monopolizing violence by the incumbent government through its greater benefit to politically stronger groups, but that the strength of this mechanism is mitigated by the induced conflict among nongovernmental armed groups mitigate when the state capacity is weak.

* Please contact the organizer via email, if you'd like to participate in the online seminar.
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