Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2013.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | eng |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81049 |
| _version_ | 1811095104206667776 |
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| author | Ralston, Laura R. (Laura Rosalind) |
| author2 | Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone and Ben Olken. |
| author_facet | Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone and Ben Olken. Ralston, Laura R. (Laura Rosalind) |
| author_sort | Ralston, Laura R. (Laura Rosalind) |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2013. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:10:42Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/81049 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:10:42Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/810492019-04-10T07:48:20Z Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development Ralston, Laura R. (Laura Rosalind) Esther Duflo, Michael Greenstone and Ben Olken. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics. Economics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2013. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-182). This dissertation consists of three chapters on topics relating to conflict, social cooperation and development economics. Several studies have identified the impact of adverse economic shocks on civil conflict using rainfall variation as an instrument for income or growth. The first chapter contributes to this literature by carrying out a micro-level analysis on the relationship between climate and resource variation with armed conflict using a novel dataset on inter-tribal violence manifested through livestock raids in a pastoral-dependent region of East African called the Karamoja. Consistent with previous work, I find that across the region there is a negative relationship between resources and conflict, when resources are measured with forage. However, I also find that both decreases and increases in rainfall are correlated with conflict across the region. This bimodal relationship between precipitation and conflict persists when I analyse raid-location and tribe specific variation in rainfall, while the relationship between forage and raiding is less clear. There is some indication that forage-scarcity motivates tribes to carry out raids and forage-scarce sublocations appear to be more vulnerable to raids and livestock losses, but these results are not robust to all specifications. In the second chapter, I study the effect of Uganda's 2006 disarmament policy in the Karamoja region in East Africa. The disarmament policy greatly reduced the guns of tribes in the Ugandan districts of the region but not in the Kenyan districts. The theoretical impact of the disarmament is ambiguous, however, since guns can be used for deterrence as well as helping aggressors carry out violent crimes, such as livestock raiding. Empirically, I find that the disarmament campaign had the unintended effect of increasing the frequency of raids in Uganda by about 40%, while, consistent with the idea that disarmament reduced the costs of raiding, I find no impact on the monthly death rate. Moreover, the increase in raids in Uganda was driven by an increase in Ugandan initiated raids on other Ugandans, not an increase in Kenyan initiated raids on Ugandans, suggesting that within Uganda the deterrent effect of guns outweighs their impact as a tool of aggression. In the third chapter, written jointly with Johannes Haushofer, we study the impact of stress on social behavior by exogenously stimulating the two biological systems associated with stress: the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and noradrenergic (NA) system and measuring behavior in interactive tasks in a laboratory experiment. Our preliminary findings suggest that the concurrent stimulation of both systems, through the administration of 60mg of hydrocortisone and 20mg of yohimbine, did not lead to statistically detectable changes to behavior in any of the social tasks. It did, however, manifest in lower opinions of the trustworthiness and fairness of other people, as well as a decrease in the value associated with helping other people, as measured through a visual analog scale survey. Given these initial results, we find preliminary evidence for a relationship between stress and anti-social behavior as revealed through lower beliefs on social standards. JEL Classification: C91, K42, Q56 by Laura R. Ralston. Ph.D. 2013-09-24T19:39:27Z 2013-09-24T19:39:27Z 2013 2013 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81049 857791588 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 182 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Economics. Ralston, Laura R. (Laura Rosalind) Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development |
| title | Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development |
| title_full | Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development |
| title_fullStr | Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development |
| title_full_unstemmed | Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development |
| title_short | Essays on conflict, cooperation and economic development |
| title_sort | essays on conflict cooperation and economic development |
| topic | Economics. |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81049 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ralstonlaurarlaurarosalind essaysonconflictcooperationandeconomicdevelopment |