Confl‡ict, Climate and Cells

Harari and La Ferrara: We conduct a geographically and temporally disaggregated empirical analysis of civil confl‡ict at the sub-national level in Africa over the period 1997-2006. Our units of observation are cells of 1 degree of latitude by 1 degree of longitude. We exploit within-year variation in the timing of weather shocks and in the growing season of different crops, as well as spatial variation in crop cover, to construct an original measure of shocks that are relevant for agricultural production. Employing a new draught index we show that negative climate shocks which occur during the growing season of the main crops cultivated in the cell have a sizeable effect on confl‡ict incidence. This effect is persistent over time and to a lesser extent in space. We also use state-of-the-art spatial econometric techniques to test for the presence of temporal and spatial spillovers in confl‡ict, and we fi…nd both to be sizeable and highly statistically signi…ficant. Exploiting variation in the type of confl‡ict episode, we …nd that the impact of climate shocks on confl‡ict is particularly signi…ficant when focusing on outcomes such a rebel recruitment.