TY  - JOUR
AU  - Besley,Timothy J.
AU  - Persson,Torsten
TI  - The Incidence of Civil War: Theory and Evidence
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14585
PY  - 2008
Y2  - December 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14585
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14585.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Timothy J. Besley
Department of Economics
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London  WC2A 2AE  ENGLAND
E-Mail: T.Besley@lse.ac.uk

Torsten Persson
Torsten and Ragnar Soderberg Chair in Economic Sci
Institute for International Economic Studies
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm
SWEDEN
Tel: +46 8 163066
Fax: +46 8 6747801
E-Mail: Torsten.Persson@iies.su.se
AB  - This paper studies the incidence of civil war over time. We put forward a canonical model of civil war, which relates the incidence of conflict to circumstances, institutions and features of the underlying economy and polity. We use this model to derive testable predictions and to interpret the cross-sectional and times-series variations in civil conflict. Our most novel emprical finding is that higher world market prices of exported, as well as imported, commodities are strong and significant predictors of higher within-country incidence of civil war.
ER  -