Patricia Justino

Poverty and violent conflict : a micro-level perspective on the causes and duration of warfare

This article discusses how endogenous mechanisms linking processes of violent conflict and the economic well-being of individuals and households in combat areas provide valuable micro foundations to the ongoing debate on the causes and duration of armed conflict. Notably, the endogenous relationship between conflict processes and household economic status leads to the emergence of symbiotic associations between armed groups and households living in areas they control that affect substantially the probability of a conflict starting and its effectiveness thereafter. Households in conflict areas draw on local armed groups to protect their economic status when anticipating violence and during the conflict, while armed groups make use of different levels of (either reluctant or voluntary) participation, support and cooperation from local populations to advance their strategic objectives at the onset and throughout the conflict. The level of household participation at the start and during the conflict is a function of two interdependent variables, namely household vulnerability to poverty and household vulnerability to violence. The poorer the household is at the start of the conflict, the higher is the probability of the household participating and supporting an armed group. The higher the risk of violence, the higher is the probability of the household participating and supporting armed groups. The interaction between these two variables varies with the conflict itself and is defined by the direct and indirect effects of conflict-induced violence on the economic behaviour and decisions of households in combat areas.

Poverty Dynamics, Violent Conflict, and Convergence in Rwanda

Civil war and genocide in the 1990-2000 period in Rwanda - a small, landlocked, densely populated country in Central Africa - have had differential economic impacts on the countrys provinces. The reasons for this are the death toll of the genocide, the location of battles, the waves of migration and the local resurgence of war. As a result, the labour/land and labour/capital ratios at the provincial level changed considerably during that period. Using two cross-sections, we find empirical evidence for convergence between provinces following the conflict shocks: previously richer provinces in the east and in the north of the country experienced lower, even negative, economic growth compared to the poorer western and southern provinces. This has in turn affected significantly the dynamics of household poverty in Rwanda in the same period. Using a small but unique panel of households surveyed before and after the conflict period, we find that households whose house was destroyed or who lost land ran a higher risk of falling into poverty. This was particularly the case for households who were land-rich before the genocide. We do not find this for the loss of household labour. In the latter case the effect depends on the violent or non-violent character of the loss.

Welfare in Vietnam during the 1990s: Poverty, inequality and poverty dynamics

Vietnam’s economy was transformed during the 1990s through a series of economic, social and political reforms, resulting in an average growth rate over the decade in excess of 6 per cent per annum, accompanied by a dramatic fall in the incidence of consumption per capita poverty. This paper examines changes in poverty and poverty dynamics over the 1990s using a nationally representative panel of households surveyed in 1992–93 and 1997–98. We analyse how robust the reduction in poverty is to the methods used to measure poverty. We find that regardless of where the poverty line is drawn, consumption per capita poverty fell between the surveys. We also examine changes in the distribution of living standards over time, finding that the fall in poverty was accompanied by a rise in inequality, with some sub-groups of the population failing to share equally in the growth of the country. Finally, we examine rural poverty dynamics, presenting transition matrices of movements in and out of poverty over time and estimating a model of consumption growth. We find that regional differences are important, as are access to key institutions and infrastructure, and education. We also find that shifts in employment and production patterns, especially of rice, which we argue to be induced by the economic reform process, are strongly related to changes in living standards.

Identifying Conflict and Violence in Micro-Level Surveys

The overall goal of the report is to increase the capacity of researchers and policy makers to identify comparatively, and across time, how individuals, households and communities are affected by violent conflict. The report provides an extensive overview of existing practices and datasets used in this field of research. We investigate existing methodologies and data-bases used to operationalize the variables of interest and discuss the channels linking violent conflict to individual and household welfare. Special attention is paid to methodological issues on how to design a module and operationalize variables that allow researchers to analyze the welfare effects of violent conflict across countries and across time. We develop and discuss a generic household module that can be easily inserted into future socio-economic surveys implemented in conflict-affected countries. This module will enable researchers to address specific violence-related issues comparatively across different conflict settings and systematically across time. The module proposed builds on previous experiences on survey designs in conflict-affected areas. We review existing conflict- and violence-related questionnaires, with a special focus on World Banks Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS), and propose suggestions on how to improve questionnaires in order to deepen the understanding of the nature of violent conflict and the channels whereby conflict and violence affect the welfare characteristics and choices of individuals and households in conflict areas.

On the Links between Violent Conflict and Chronic Poverty: How Much Do We Really Know?

This paper assesses the usefulness of emerging evidence-based studies in advancing the current understanding of the relationship between violent conflict and chronic poverty. Following a discussion of some key concepts, recent empirical research is reviewed. Both the transmission mechanisms from violent conflict through to chronic poverty and the impact of chronic poverty on conflict are considered. The paper concludes by identifying gaps in the current state of knowledge on this subject and proposes an ambitious future research agenda. This paper focuses on violent mass conflict, taking a dynamic view of both violent conflict and chronic poverty. A micro-level perspective is adopted, whereby impacts on individual and household poverty, exclusion and deprivation are considered. The approach is considered well-suited to uncover the links and dependencies of chronic poverty as both a cause and a consequence of conflict. It is felt that understanding how conflict develops at the micro-level will impact on how policies are designed and how incentives to prevent conflicts and maintain peace are structured. Three key questions are addressed: - Who are the chronically poor affected by/affecting violent conflict? - How are the chronically poor affected by violent conflict? - Do persistent levels of poverty impact on the likelihood of an individual, household or group participating in violent conflict? The review reveals that hard micro-level evidence on the relationship between violent conflict and (chronic) poverty is scarce and at times contradictory. However, this field of research is growing and some conclusions can be drawn. Violent conflict can cause chronic poverty and contribute to the creation of poverty traps, the chronically poor are likely to suffer disproportionately from violent conflict, and violent conflict can bring benefits to some groups (including the chronically poor) which may counterbalance the negative impacts. In turn persistent poverty can create the grounds for increased social discontent which can lead to violent conflict and chronic poverty may lead individuals to become fighters as a form of coping with poverty itself. In conclusion three main research gaps are identified: - Further research is needed on transmission mechanisms - for both violent conflict to chronic poverty and vice versa; - There is an absence of sufficient and adequate datasets for the analysis of both violent conflict and chronic poverty; - There is a large gap in knowledge between dominant macro-level policy interventions and the new emerging field of micro-level analysis of violent conflict. Each of these is considered and a research agenda thus proposed.

Remittances and labor supply in post-conflict Tajikistan

We analyze the impact of remittances on the labor supply of men and women in post-conflict Tajikistan. Individuals from remittance-receiving households are less likely to participate in the labor market and supply fewer hours when they do. The results are robust to different measures of remittances and migration. When we differentiate between regions by their exposure to the 1992-1998 armed conflict, we observe that the negative effect of remittances on the labor supply of women is primarily driven by women from the regions more exposed to fighting and destruction during the war. Remittances have a similar negative effect on the supply of labor hours worked across all regions, both for men and women. Further, in the households that do not have migrants, remittances have no effect on the labor supply by males, suggesting that migration and not remittances is the primary factor explaining male labor force participation.JEL codes: J22, Time Allocation and Labor Supply; F22, International Migration; F24, Remittances; O12, Microeconomics Analyses of Household Behavior

Poverty Dynamics During Trade Reform: Evidence From Rural Vietnam

This paper implements and adapts the conceptual framework developed by Winters (2002) that identifies the transmission mechanisms between trade policy reform and household welfare outcomes. We make use of household panel data from Vietnam collected in two years, 1992-93 and 1997-98 that span the very earliest years of the reform period and its immediate after effects. Poverty dynamics are modeled using changes in consumption expenditure and poverty transition models. The trade effect is captured by a set of variables that are most likely to have an impact on rural poverty, namely prices of staples and employment in the export sector. We show that trade liberalization has a material and positive effect on rural household welfare and this trade effect is largely transmitted to the poor through the labor market channel. Copyright 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation International Association for Research in Income and Wealth 2008.

Violent conflict and human capital accumulation

This paper reviews and discusses available empirical research on the impact of violent conflict on the level and access to education of civilian and combatant populations affected by violence. Three main themes emerge from this empirical review. The first is that relatively minor shocks to educational access can lead to significant and long-lasting detrimental effects on individual human capital formation in terms of educational attainment, health outcomes and labour market opportunities. Secondly, the destruction of infrastructure, the absence of teachers and reductions in schooling capacity affect secondary schooling disproportionately. Finally, the exposure of households to violence results in significant gender differentials in individual educational outcomes. The paper then turns its attention to the specific mechanisms that link violent conflict with educational outcomes, an area largely unexplored in the literatures on conflict and education. The paper focuses six key mechanisms: soldiering, household labour allocation decisions, fear, changes in returns to education, targeting of schools, teachers and students and displacement.

Bridging Micro and Macro Approaches on Civil Wars and Political Violence Issues, Challenges, and the Way Forward

This article reflects on the importance of linking micro and macro levels of analysis in order to advance our current understanding of civil wars and political violence processes and discusses the contributions of the articles in this special issue. We first identify the main problems in research on political violence that is focused on a single level of analysis and describe the challenges faced by research that attempts to establish connections between different levels. We then introduce the different articles in the special issue, with an emphasis on the micro–macro-level linkages they develop and highlighting their commonalities. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of a new research agenda for the study of civil wars and political violence that bridges social, economic, and political dynamics occurring at the local level and conflict processes taking place in the macro arena.

On the Links Between Violent Conflict and Household Poverty: How Much do We Really Know?

This paper assesses the usefulness of a new emerging body of work on the micro-level analysis of conflict and violence in advancing our current understanding of the relationship between violent conflict and household poverty. Micro-level empirical evidence on the relationship between violent conflict and poverty has been scarce and at times contradictory. This field of research has, however, grown significantly in recent years and evidence is slowly starting to accumulate. The paper makes use of new findings to propose a framework to understand fundamental transmission mechanisms from violent conflict through to household poverty, as well as the potential impact of household poverty on conflict. This framework suggests three key self-reinforcing mechanisms through which violent conflict may impact on the poor: through the impact on assets and livelihoods, through education and health effects, and through the displacement of populations and the breakdown of socioeconomic networks. In addition, the paper conceptualises the extent to which poverty can act as a trigger for violent conflict owing to lack of choice of those involved, widespread social discontent amongst different population groups and the search for better socio-economic opportunities. We expect this framework to act as a benchmark for further work on the analysis of the relationship between poverty and violent conflict, including much-needed efforts at gathering further empirical evidence.