The Economics of Conflict

Based on critical discussion and replication of the existing literature on both determinants as well as consequences of conflict (ranging from civil war to social unrest) we will discuss questions like the connections between economic inequality, political repression, poverty or gender inequality and conflict. Each student will be working on a specific article allocated in the beginning. During the seminar, you will replicate and extend the article using the statistical program Stata. In the mandatory tutorial, Stata and the application of relevant methods for conflict studies will be introduced. In the block seminar, we will discuss everybody’s results so that we get to learn about different perspectives, methods and questions related to conflict.

Please note: The entire seminar is organized online. We offer a combination of asynchronous videos, live meetings (via Zoom or Big Blue Button) and chats. Regular participation in the live meetings is expected.

Requirements: Knowledge in statistics and econometrics

Introductory Literature:

• Blattman, C. and E. Miguel (2010): Civil War. Journal of Economic Literature 48 (1): 3 – 57.
• Hegre, H. and N. Sambanis (2006): Sensitivity Analysis of Empirical Results on Civil War Onset. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (4): 508–535.
• Collier, P. (1999): On the Economic Consequences of Civil War. Oxford Economic Papers 51 (1):168–183.
• Collier, P. and A. Hoeffler (2004): Greed and Grievance in Civil War. Oxford Economic Papers56 (4): 563–595.

Dates:

• Application until October 1^st, 2020 (with the application form, a ranking of preferred topics, and a transcript of records)
• Allocation of topics by October 9^th, 2020
• First meeting (mandatory): November 6^th, 2020, 9.30-12.30, ONLINE
• Withdrawal after November 6^th, 2020 is not possible
• Block seminar: January 07^th, 2021, from 9.00 to 16.00 and January 08^th, 2021, from 9.00 to 12.30, ONLINE
  
• Individual meetings to discuss extension ideas/structure of the seminar papers with Dr. Renner (online meetings, prior booking required): November 19^th, 2020 (13.00-17.00) and December 17^th, 2020 (13.00-17.00)
• Handing in presentations: January 05^th, 2021
• Handing in the final paper: February 1^st, 2021

Stata tutorial (held by Lena Schmid, online):

• Videos to watch (including: Introduction to Stata, Descriptive Statistics, Estimation Techniques)
• Problem Set on How-to-Work-With-Stata with discussion in live meeting on

         November 13th, 2020, 9.15-11.45

• Live Chats for smaller questions concerning Stata: Fridays 9-10h

         November 27th, 2020

         December 18th, 2020

• Live Q&A concerning Stata, 9.15-12

         December 4th, 2020

4 ECTS: Not possible

6 ECTS: Seminar participants have to write a seminar paper (4,500-5,000 words plus tables, graphs and references), and to do a short presentation (25 minutes). In the paper, we expect a critical discussion of the paper, a reasoning for the extension and a discussion of the results. A placement in the literature is expected and the foundation for the critical discussion and the extension.

List of Topics.