IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea15/202612.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Causal Exploration of Food Price Shocks and Conflict in Sudan

Author

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

Abstract

Though recent literature uncovers linkages between commodity prices and conflict, the causal direction of the relationship remains ambiguous. We attempt to contribute in 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 Structure Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model (LiNGAM), we find that wheat price is a cause of conflict events in Sudan. We find no feedback from conflict to commodity prices.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea15:202612
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.202612
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/202612/files/AAEA2015_Sudan.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.202612?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    3. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    4. Timothy J. Besley & Torsten Persson, 2008. "The Incidence of Civil War: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 14585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Bellemare, Marc F., 2011. "Rising food prices, food price volatility, and political unrest," MPRA Paper 31888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. David A. Bessler & Derya G. Akleman, 1998. "Farm Prices, Retail Prices, and Directed Graphs: Results for Pork and Beef," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1144-1149.
    9. Lambert, David K. & Miljkovic, Dragan, 2010. "The sources of variability in U.S. food prices," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 210-222, March.
    10. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    11. Letiche, John M., 2010. "Transforming sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 163-175, March.
    12. Kling, John L. & Bessler, David A., 1985. "A comparison of multivariate forecasting procedures for economic time series," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 5-24.
    13. 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.
    14. Bhatt, Vipul & Kishor, N. Kundan, 2015. "Are all movements in food and energy prices transitory? Evidence from India," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 92-106.
    15. 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.
    16. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    17. 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).
    18. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. 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.
    25. 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.
    26. 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.
    27. 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.
    28. 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.
    29. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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 & Price, Edwin, 2018. "The relationship between conflict events and commodity prices in Sudan," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 663-684.
    3. 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.
    4. Arinze Nwokolo, 2018. "Oil Price Shocks and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Nigeria," HiCN Working Papers 274, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. 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.
    6. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    7. 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.
    8. Maystadt, Jean-François & Trinh Tan, Jean-François & Breisinger, Clemens, 2014. "Does food security matter for transition in Arab countries?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 106-115.
    9. 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.
    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," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    11. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    12. 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.
    13. Achim Ahrens, 2015. "Civil conflicts in Africa: Climate, economic shocks, nighttime lights and spill-over effects," SEEC Discussion Papers 1501, Spatial Economics and Econometrics Centre, Heriot Watt University.
    14. 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.
    15. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," PSE Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    16. Giménez Gómez, José M. (José Manuel), 2016. "Linking social heterogeneity and commodity price shocks to civil conflicts," Working Papers 2072/290744, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    17. Mahdi FAWAZ, 2020. "Ressources naturelles et guerres civiles au Moyen-Orient," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2020-09, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    18. 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.
    19. Francesco Amodio & Leonardo Baccini & Michele Di Maio, 2021. "Security, Trade, and Political Violence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-37.
    20. Verme, Paolo & Schuettler, Kirsten, 2021. "The impact of forced displacement on host communities: A review of the empirical literature in economics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    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:ags:aaea15:202612. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.