IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v62y2022i3d10.1007_s00181-021-02064-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A replication note on humanitarian aid and violence

Author

Listed:
  • Sébastien Mary

    (Governors State University)

Abstract

A recent systematic review by Zurcher (World Develop 98: 506–522, 2017) finds that humanitarian aid unequivocally increases violence. This note demonstrates that this conclusion is not warranted by a careful examination of the studies included in the abovementioned systematic review. We highlight the incorrect interpretation of econometric results and the lack of robustness in the sampled studies. We also replicate three studies, and report mixed evidence on the effect of humanitarian aid on violence.

Suggested Citation

  • Sébastien Mary, 2022. "A replication note on humanitarian aid and violence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 1465-1494, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:62:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00181-021-02064-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-021-02064-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-021-02064-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-021-02064-w?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. Anne T. Kuriakose & Rasmus Heltberg & William Wiseman & Cecilia Costella & Rachel Cipryk & Sabine Cornelius, 2013. "Climate-Responsive Social Protection," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31, pages 19-34, November.
    2. Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian, 2014. "US Food Aid and Civil Conflict," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1630-1666, June.
    3. Ricardo Mora & Iliana Reggio, 2019. "Alternative diff-in-diffs estimators with several pretreatment periods," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 465-486, May.
    4. Christian,Paul J. & Barrett,Christopher B., 2017. "Revisiting the effect of food aid on conflict : a methodological caution," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8171, The World Bank.
    5. Maarten L. Buis, 2010. "Stata tip 87: Interpretation of interactions in nonlinear models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(2), pages 305-308, June.
    6. Mathieu Couttenier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2014. "Drought and Civil War In Sub‐Saharan Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(575), pages 201-244, March.
      • Couttenier, Mathieu & Hofstetter, Annie & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2013. "Drought and civil war in sub-Saharan Africa," INRAE Sciences Sociales, Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (INRAE), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2), vol. 2013, pages 1-6, March.
    7. World Bank, 2011. "World Development Report 2011 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2011 : Conflits, sécurité et développement - Abrégé]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4389.
    8. de Ree, Joppe & Nillesen, Eleonora, 2009. "Aiding violence or peace? The impact of foreign aid on the risk of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 301-313, March.
    9. Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2003. "Economic Crises and Natural Disasters: Coping Strategies and Policy Implications," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1087-1102, July.
    10. Chabé-Ferret, Sylvain, 2015. "Analysis of the bias of Matching and Difference-in-Difference under alternative earnings and selection processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 185(1), pages 110-123.
    11. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    12. Solomon Asfaw & Alessandro Carraro & Benjamin Davis & Sudhanshu Handa & David Seidenfeld, 2017. "Cash transfer programmes, weather shocks and household welfare: evidence from a randomised experiment in Zambia," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 419-442, October.
    13. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    14. Mary, Sébastien & Saravia-Matus, Silvia & Gomez y Paloma, Sergio, 2018. "Does nutrition-sensitive aid reduce the prevalence of undernourishment?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 100-116.
    15. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    16. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    17. Zürcher, Christoph, 2017. "What Do We (Not) Know About Development Aid and Violence? A Systematic Review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 506-522.
    18. Barrett, Christopher B., 2002. "Food Aid Effectiveness: "It'S The Targeting, Stupid!"," Working Papers 14754, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    19. Patrick Royston, 2001. "Flexible alternatives to the Cox model, and more," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 1(1), pages 1-28, November.
    20. World Bank, 2010. "World Development Report 2010," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4387.
    21. Solomon Asfaw & Benjamin Davis, 2018. "Can Cash Transfer Programmes Promote Household Resilience? Cross-Country Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Natural Resource Management and Policy, in: Leslie Lipper & Nancy McCarthy & David Zilberman & Solomon Asfaw & Giacomo Branca (ed.), Climate Smart Agriculture, pages 227-250, Springer.
    22. Hsiang, Solomon M & Meng, Kyle C, 2014. "Reconciling disagreement over climate–conflict results in Africa," University of California at Santa Barbara, Recent Works in Economics qt8g60j076, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    23. Benjamin Crost & Joseph Felter & Patrick Johnston, 2014. "Aid under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1833-1856, June.
    24. Solomon M. Hsiang & Kyle C. Meng & Mark A. Cane, 2011. "Civil conflicts are associated with the global climate," Nature, Nature, vol. 476(7361), pages 438-441, August.
    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. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food aid and violent conflict: A review and Empiricist’s companion," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    2. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food Aid and Violent Conflict: A Review of Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 16574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Mary, Sébastien & Mishra, Ashok K., 2020. "Humanitarian food aid and civil conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Mary, Sebastien, 2022. "Dams mitigate the effect of rainfall shocks on Hindus-Muslims riots," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. Richard Bluhm & Martin Gassebner & Sarah Langlotz & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "Fueling conflict? (De)escalation and bilateral aid," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 244-261, March.
    4. Castells-Quintana, David & Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & McDermott, Thomas K.J., 2022. "Population displacement and urban conflict: Global evidence from more than 3300 flood events," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. M. Christian Lehmann, 2020. "Aiding refugees, aiding peace?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1687-1704, September.
    6. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food Aid and Violent Conflict: A Review of Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 16574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & Castells-Quintana, David & McDermott, Thomas K. J., 2017. "Geography, institutions and development: a review ofthe long-run impacts of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Eugen Dimant & Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2024. "Paying Them to Hate US: The Effect of US Military Aid on Anti-American Terrorism, 1968–2018," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(663), pages 2772-2802.
    9. Crost, Benjamin & Duquennois, Claire & Felter, Joseph H. & Rees, Daniel I., 2018. "Climate change, agricultural production and civil conflict: Evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 379-395.
    10. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food aid and violent conflict: A review and Empiricist’s companion," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    11. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    12. Wong, Pui-Hang, 2017. "How development aid explains (or not) the rise and fall of insurgent attacks in Iraq," MERIT Working Papers 2017-006, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    13. Jeffrey R. Bloem, 2019. "Good Intentions Gone Bad? The Dodd-Frank Act and Conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes Region," HiCN Working Papers 300, Households in Conflict Network.
    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. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Julian Donaubauer & Dierk Herzer & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Aid under Post-Conflict Conditions: A Sector-Specific Analysis," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 720-736, April.
    17. 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.
    18. Travers Barclay Child & Elena Nikolova, 2017. "War and Social Attitudes: Revisiting Consensus Views," HiCN Working Papers 258, Households in Conflict Network.
    19. 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.
    20. Alex Dickson & Ian A MacKenzie & Petros G Sekeris, 2018. "The role of markets and preferences on resource conflicts," Working Papers 1819, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Humanitarian aid; Conflict; Violence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

    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:spr:empeco:v:62:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00181-021-02064-w. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.