The Geography of Inter-State Resource Wars
We establish a theoretical as well as empirical framework to assess the role of resource endowments and their geographic location for inter-State conflict. The main predictions of the theory are that conflict tends to be 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-a-vis the border. We test these predictions on a novel dataset featuring oilfield distances from bilateral borders. The empirical analysis shows that the presence and location of oil are significant and quantitatively important predictors of inter-State conflicts after WW2.
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Copy CitationFrancesco Caselli, Massimo Morelli, and Dominic Rohner, "The Geography of Inter-State Resource Wars," NBER Working Paper 18978 (2013), https://doi.org/10.3386/w18978.Download Citation
Published Versions
Francesco Caselli & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2015. "The Geography of Interstate Resource Wars," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 130(1), pages 267-315. citation courtesy of 
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