Wars impose tremendous costs on societies and the question of how to end them is of foremost importance. Several hundred books and scientific articles have been written on peace agreements and third-party interventions. In this article I provide a critical literature survey on what policies foreign countries have at their disposal if they wish to foster peace abroad. Ranging from pure (nonmilitarized) mediation, over a range of military options to economic policies, the promises and pitfalls of these types of interventions are critically assessed in the light of cutting-edge theoretical and empirical literature. A series of take-home messages emerge: (i) establishing a causal effect of mediation has proven difficult; (ii) military peacekeeping operations can play a key role, to the extent that security guarantees, the sharing of political and military power, and trust-building measures are well coordinated; and (iii) money matters—fostering human capital and economic opportunities contributes to fertile ground for lasting peace. (JEL C78, D74, D82, F13, F51, F52)

Abstract We establish a theoretical and empirical framework to assess the role of resource endowments and their geographic location in interstate conflict. The main predictions of the theory are that conflict is more likely when at least one country has natural resources, when the resources in the resource-endowed country are closer to the border, and, in the case where both countries have natural resources, when the resources are located asymmetrically vis-à-vis the border. We test these predictions on a novel data set featuring oilfield distances from bilateral borders. The empirical analysis shows that the presence and location of oil are significant and quantitatively important predictors of interstate conflicts after World War II.

Abstract We investigate the impact of climate shocks on farmer-herder violence, using geolocalized data on conflict events for Africa, 1997-2014. We find that a one degree temperature increase yields a 54% increase in conflict probability in mixed areas populated by both farmers and herders (versus 17% in non-mixed areas). Quantifying the impact of projected climate change in 2040, we find that -when factoring in the magnifying effect of mixed settlements- annual conflicts are predicted to rise by a third. Drawing on a fine-grained analysis of groups' mobility patterns, we show that resource competition is a major driver of farmer-herder violence.

We study empirically how past exposure to conflict in origin countries makes migrants more violence-prone in their host country, focusing on asylum seekers in Switzerland. We exploit a novel and unique dataset on all crimes reported in Switzerland by the nationalities of perpetrators and of victims over 2009–2016. Our baseline result is that cohorts exposed to civil conflict/mass killing during childhood are 35 percent more prone to violent crime than the average cohort. This effect is particularly strong for early childhood exposure and is mostly confined to co-nationals, consistent with inter-group hostility persisting over time. We exploit cross-region heterogeneity in public policies within Switzerland to document which integration policies are best able to mitigate the detrimental effect of past conflict exposure on violent criminality. We find that offering labor market access to asylum seekers eliminates two-thirds of the effect. (JEL D74, F22, K42, Z18)

We combine georeferenced data on mining extraction of 14 minerals with information on conflict events at spatial resolution of 0.5 o × 0.5 o for all of Africa between 1997 and 2010. Exploiting exogenous variations in world prices, we find a positive impact of mining on conflict at the local level. Quantitatively, our estimates suggest that the historical rise in mineral prices (commodity super-cycle) might explain up to one-fourth of the average level of violence across African countries over the period. We then document how a fighting group's control of a mining area contributes to escalation from local to global violence. Finally, we analyze the impact of corporate practices and transparency initiatives in the mining industry. (JEL C23, D74, L70, O13, Q34)

We provide a model of conflict and mass killing decisions to identify the key variables and situations that make mass killings more likely to occur. We predict that mass killings are most likely in countries with large amounts of natural resource rents, polarization, institutional constraints regarding rent sharing, and low productivity of labor. The role of resources such as oil, gas, and diamonds and other key determinants of mass killings is confirmed by our empirical results based on country-level as well as ethnic group–level analysis.

We study from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective how a network of military alliances and enmities affects the intensity of a conflict. The model combines elements from network theory and from the politico-economic theory of conflict. We obtain a closed-form characterization of the Nash equilibrium. Using the equilibrium conditions, we perform an empirical analysis using data on the Second Congo War, a conflict that involves many groups in a complex network of informal alliances and rivalries. The estimates of the fighting externalities are then used to infer the extent to which the conflict intensity can be reduced through (i) dismantling specific fighting groups involved in the conflict; (ii) weapon embargoes; (iii) interventions aimed at pacifying animosity among groups. Finally, with the aid of a random utility model, we study how policy shocks can induce a reshaping of the network structure.