IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jpolmo/v40y2018i4p663-684.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The relationship between conflict events and commodity prices in Sudan

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Junyi
  • Kibriya, Shahriar
  • Bessler, David
  • Price, Edwin

Abstract

Though recent literature uncovers linkages between commodity prices and conflict, the causal direction of the relationship remains ambiguous. We attempt to contribute to this strand of research by studying the dynamic relationship of commodity prices and the onsets of conflict events in Sudan. Using monthly data ranging from January 2001 through December 2012, we identify a structural breakpoint in the multivariate time series model of prices of the three staple foods (sorghum, millet, and wheat) and conflict measure (number of conflict events) in September of 2011. Applying structural vector autoregression (SVAR) and linear non-Gaussian acyclic model (LiNGAM), we find that wheat price fluctuation is a root cause of conflict events in Sudan. We recommend several policy and programmatic suggestions structured toward production, subsidy, price regulation and support for rural farmers and consumers to stabilize commodity prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Junyi & Kibriya, Shahriar & Bessler, David & Price, Edwin, 2018. "The relationship between conflict events and commodity prices in Sudan," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 663-684.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:40:y:2018:i:4:p:663-684
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2018.01.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161893818300206
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2018.01.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimo Guidolin & Eliana La Ferrara, 2010. "The economic effects of violent conflict: Evidence from asset market reactions," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(6), pages 671-684, November.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Besley, Tim, 2008. "The Incidence of Civil War: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 7101, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Derek Headey & Shenggen Fan, 2008. "Anatomy of a crisis: the causes and consequences of surging food prices," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 39(s1), pages 375-391, November.
    4. Jayne, Thomas S. & Mason, Nicole M. & Myers, Robert J. & Ferris, John N. & Mather, David & Sitko, Nicholas & Beaver, Margaret & Lenski, Natalie & Chapoto, Antony & Boughton, Duncan, 2010. "Patterns and Trends in Food Staples Markets in Eastern and Southern Africa: Toward the Identification of Priority Investments and Strategies for Developing Markets and Promoting Smallholder Productivi," Food Security International Development Working Papers 62148, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    5. Bernanke, Ben S., 1986. "Alternative explanations of the money-income correlation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 49-99, January.
    6. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    7. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    8. David A. Bessler & Shahriar Kibriya & Junyi Chen & Edwin Price, 2016. "On Forecasting Conflict in the Sudan: 2009–2012," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(2), pages 179-188, March.
    9. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    10. Jarque, Carlos M. & Bera, Anil K., 1980. "Efficient tests for normality, homoscedasticity and serial independence of regression residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 255-259.
    11. Markus Brückner & Antonio Ciccone, 2010. "International Commodity Prices, Growth and the Outbreak of Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 519-534, May.
    12. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    13. Ali H. Abdelrahman, 1998. "Trends in Sudanese Cereal Production, Consumption, and Trade," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 98-wp198, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    14. Rabah Arezki & Markus Brückner, 2011. "Food prices and political instability," NCID Working Papers 01/2011, Navarra Center for International Development, University of Navarra.
    15. Hitzhusen, Frederick J. & Jeanty, Pierre Wilner, 2006. "Analyzing the Effects of Conflicts on Food Security in Developing Countries: An Instrumental Variable Panel Data Approach," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21483, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    17. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    18. Berazneva, Julia & Lee, David R., 2013. "Explaining the African food riots of 2007–2008: An empirical analysis," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 28-39.
    19. Hadley, Craig & Stevenson, Edward Geoffrey Jedediah & Tadesse, Yemesrach & Belachew, Tefera, 2012. "Rapidly rising food prices and the experience of food insecurity in urban Ethiopia: Impacts on health and well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2412-2419.
    20. Alessio Moneta & Doris Entner & Patrik O. Hoyer & Alex Coad, 2013. "Causal Inference by Independent Component Analysis: Theory and Applications," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(5), pages 705-730, October.
    21. Ali H. Abdelrahman, 1998. "Trends in Sudanese Cereal Production, Consumption, and Trade," Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) Publications (archive only) 98-wp198, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    22. Letiche, John M., 2010. "Transforming sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 163-175, March.
    23. Clionadh Raleigh & rew Linke & HÃ¥vard Hegre & Joakim Karlsen, 2010. "Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(5), pages 651-660, September.
    24. Markus Bruckner & Antonio Ciccone, 2010. "International Commodities Prices, Growth and the Outbreak of Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 1008, BBVA Bank, Economic Research Department.
    25. Bessler, David A., 1984. "Additional evidence on money and prices: U.S. data 1870-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 125-132, April.
    26. T. Demuynck & A. Schollaert, 2008. "International commodity prices and the persistence of civil conflict," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 08/518, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    27. Marc F. Bellemare, 2015. "Rising Food Prices, Food Price Volatility, and Social Unrest," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 1-21.
    28. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    29. Christos Kollias & Catherine Kyrtsou & Stephanos Papadamou, 2011. "The Effects of Terrorism and War on the Oil and Prices Stock Indices Relationship," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 57, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark Musumba & Naureen Fatema & Shahriar Kibriya, 2021. "Prevention Is Better Than Cure: Machine Learning Approach to Conflict Prediction in Sub-Saharan Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-18, July.
    2. Ding, Qian & Huang, Jianbai & Gao, Wang & Zhang, Hongwei, 2022. "Does political risk matter for gold market fluctuations? A structural VAR analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Olexandr Yemelyanov & Tetyana Petrushka & Lilia Lesyk & Anatolii Havryliak & Nataliya Yanevych & Oksana Kurylo & Volodymyr Bodakovskyy & Iryna Skoropad & Taras Danylovych & Kateryna Petrushka, 2023. "Assessing the Sustainability of the Consumption of Agricultural Products with Regard to a Possible Reduction in Its Imports: The Case of Countries That Import Corn and Wheat," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-29, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Junyi & Kibriya, Shahriar & Bessler, David & Price, Edwin, 2015. "A Causal Exploration of Conflict Events and Commodity Prices of Sudan," MPRA Paper 62461, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Chen, Junyi & Kibriya, Shahriar & Bessler, David A. & Price, Edwin C., 2015. "A Causal Exploration of Food Price Shocks and Conflict in Sudan," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 202612, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    4. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," PSE Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    5. Eoin McGuirk & Marshall Burke, 2020. "The Economic Origins of Conflict in Africa," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(10), pages 3940-3997.
    6. Massimiliano Calì & Alen Mulabdic, 2017. "Trade and civil conflict: Revisiting the cross-country evidence," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 195-232, February.
    7. Arinze Nwokolo, 2018. "Oil Price Shocks and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Nigeria," HiCN Working Papers 274, Households in Conflict Network.
    8. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    9. Zhukov, Yuri M., 2016. "Trading hard hats for combat helmets: The economics of rebellion in eastern Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-15.
    10. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," CERDI Working papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    11. Jean-François Maystadt & Olivier Ecker, 2014. "Extreme Weather and Civil War: Does Drought Fuel Conflict in Somalia through Livestock Price Shocks?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1157-1182.
    12. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    13. Phoebe W. Ishak & Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2022. "Oil price shocks, protest, and the shadow economy: Is there a mitigation effect?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 298-321, July.
    14. Naureen Fatema & Shahriar Kibriya, 2018. "Givers of great dinners know few enemies: The impact of household food sufficiency and food sharing on low intensity interhousehold and community conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo," HiCN Working Papers 267, Households in Conflict Network.
    15. Carine Meyimdjui, 2020. "Imported Food Price Shocks and Socio-Political Instability: Do Fiscal Policy and Remittances Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2020/248, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Fatema, Naureen & Kibriya, Shahriar, 2017. "Givers of great dinners know few enemies: The impact of household food security on micro-level communal conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258482, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Ludolph, Lars & Sedova, Barbora, 2021. "Global food prices, local weather and migration in Sub-Saharan Africa," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242334, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Gautam Bose & Mitchell Choi & Hasin Yousaf, 2021. "Culture, Economic Shocks and Conflict: Does trust moderate the effect of price shocks on conflict?," Discussion Papers 2021-03, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    19. David Ubilava & Justin V. Hastings & Kadir Atalay, 2023. "Agricultural windfalls and the seasonality of political violence in Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(5), pages 1309-1332, October.
    20. Giménez-Gómez, José-Manuel & Zergawu, Yitagesu-Zewdu, 2018. "The impact of social heterogeneity and commodity price shocks on civil conflicts," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 959-997.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Commodity prices; Conflict; Structured vector autoregression; Linear non-Gaussian acyclic model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • Q02 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Commodity Market

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:40:y:2018:i:4:p:663-684. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505735 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.