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American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 6 2014

Aid Under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict

Benjamin Crost1; Joseph Felter2; Patrick B. Johnston3

1 Department of Economics, University of Colorado-Denver, Campus Box 181, PO Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217 (e-mail: ) · 2 Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Encina Hall C222, Stanford, CA 94305 (e-mail: ) · 3 RAND Corporation, 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (e-mail: )

Abstract

We estimate the causal effect of a large development program on conflict in the Philippines through a regression discontinuity design that exploits an arbitrary poverty threshold used to assign eligibility for the program. We find that barely eligible municipalities experienced a large increase in conflict casualties compared to barely ineligible ones. This increase is mostly due to insurgent-initiated incidents in the early stages of program preparation. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that insurgents try to sabotage the program because its success would weaken their support in the population.

DOI
10.1257/aer.104.6.1833
Volume
104
Issue
6
Pages
1833-1856
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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