IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bge/wpaper/744.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality, Ethnicity and Civil Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • John D. Huber
  • Laura Mayoral

Abstract

Although economic inequality has long been viewed as a cause of civil conflict, existing research has not found robust empirical support for this relationship. This study explores the connections between inequality and civil conflict by focusing on the mediating role of ethnic identity. Using over 200 individual-level surveys from 89 countries, we provide a new data set with country- and group-level measures of inequality within and across ethnic groups. We then show that consistent with Esteban and Ray's (2011) argument about the need for labor and capital to fight civil wars, at both the country and group level, there is a strong positive association between within-group inequality and civil conflict. We do not, however, find support for previous arguments that inequality across ethnic groups should be associated with the incidence or intensity of civil conflict. By breaking down the measures of inequality into group-level components, the analysis helps explain why it is difficult to identify a relationship between general inequality and conflict. More generally, it highlights the limitations in cross-national research associated with drawing substantive conclusions by relying on measures of overall inequality, like the Gini.

Suggested Citation

  • John D. Huber & Laura Mayoral, 2013. "Inequality, Ethnicity and Civil Conflict," Working Papers 744, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:744
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.barcelonagse.eu/sites/default/files/working_paper_pdfs/744.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1998. "New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 259-287.
    2. Anirban Mitra & Debraj Ray, 2014. "Implications of an Economic Theory of Conflict: Hindu-Muslim Violence in India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(4), pages 719-765.
    3. David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2012. "Propaganda and Conflict: Theory and Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide," CID Working Papers 257, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    4. James Raymond Vreeland, 2008. "The Effect of Political Regime on Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 52(3), pages 401-425, June.
    5. Christopher Cramer, 2003. "Does inequality cause conflict?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 397-412.
    6. David McKenzie, 2005. "Measuring inequality with asset indicators," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 229-260, June.
    7. Fearon, James D, 2003. "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 195-222, June.
    8. Frances Stewart, "undated". "Horizontal Inequalities: A Neglected Dimension of Development," QEH Working Papers qehwps81, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    9. Pyatt, Graham, 1976. "On the Interpretation and Disaggregation of Gini Coefficients," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 86(342), pages 243-255, June.
    10. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1994. "Economic distance and overlapping of distributions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 147-159, March.
    11. Frederick Solt, 2009. "Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 231-242, June.
    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. Nicolas Berman & Mathieu Couttenier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2021. "Fertile Ground for Conflict," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 82-127.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 428-488.
    3. Anderson, Christopher Johannes & Getmansky, Anna & Hirsch-Hoefler, Sivan, 2020. "Burden sharing: income, inequality and willingness to fight," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89170, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    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. John D. Huber & Laura Mayoral, 2019. "Group inequality and the severity of civil conflict," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-41, March.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 428-488.
    3. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "Inequalities and Their Measurement," IZA Discussion Papers 1219, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    8. Paolo Liberati, 2015. "The World Distribution of Income And Its Inequality, 1970–2009," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 248-273, June.
    9. Tim C. Wegenast & Matthias Basedau, 2014. "Ethnic fractionalization, natural resources and armed conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(4), pages 432-457, September.
    10. Adedokun, Ayokunu, 2017. "Post-conflict peacebuilding: A critical survey of the literature and avenues for future research," MERIT Working Papers 2017-016, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    11. Bhattacharya, Prasad Sankar & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Rahman, Habibur, 2023. "Does credit availability mitigate domestic conflict?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    12. Flores Thomas Edward, 2014. "Vertical Inequality, Land Reform, and Insurgency in Colombia," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 5-31, January.
    13. Allanson, Paul, 2014. "Income stratification and between-group inequality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 227-230.
    14. Qiuqiong Huang & David Dawe & Scott Rozelle & Jikun Huang & Jinxia Wang, 2005. "Irrigation, poverty and inequality in rural China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 49(2), pages 159-175, June.
    15. Joan Esteban & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2015. "Strategic Mass Killings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(5), pages 1087-1132.
    16. Manthos D. Delis & Iftekhar Hasan & Pantelis Kazakis, 2014. "Bank Regulations and Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(5), pages 1811-1846.
    17. Magne Mogstad, 2007. "Measuring Income Inequality under Restricted Interpersonal Comparability," Discussion Papers 498, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    18. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    19. Max Haller & Anja Eder & Erwin Stolz, 2016. "Ethnic Stratification and Patterns of Income Inequality Around the World: A Cross-National Comparison of 123 Countries, Based on a New Index of Historic Ethnic Exploitation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 1047-1084, September.
    20. Joachim R. Frick & Jan Goebel & Edna Schechtman & Gert G. Wagner & Shlomo Yitzhaki, 2006. "Using Analysis of Gini (ANOGI) for Detecting Whether Two Subsamples Represent the Same Universe," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 34(4), pages 427-468, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ethnicity; Inequality; civil conflict; gini decomposition; within-group inequality; between-group inequality; fractionalization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bge:wpaper:744. 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: Bruno Guallar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bargses.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.