Are natural resources a “curse” or a “blessing”? The empirical evidence suggests that either
outcome is possible. This paper surveys a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for …

Conflict can profoundly affect individuals and their groups. Oftentimes, conflict involves a
clash between one side seeking change and increased gains through victory and the other …

Rape is common during wartime, but even within the context of the same war, some armed
groups perpetrate rape on a massive scale while others never do. In Rape during Civil War …

Why do some armed groups commit massive wartime rape, whereas others never do? Using
an original dataset, I describe the substantial variation in rape by armed actors during recent …

We develop and test an economic theory of insurgency motivated by the informal literature
and by recent military doctrine. We model a three-way contest between violent rebels, a …

Waging war has historically been an almost exclusively male endeavor. Yet, over the past
several decades women have joined insurgent armies in significant and surprising numbers …

Most nations have experienced an internal armed conflict since 1960. Yet while civil war is
central to many nations' development, it has stood at the periphery of economics research …

Media coverage of civil wars often focuses on the most gruesome atrocities and the most
extreme conflicts, which might lead one to think that all civil wars involve massive violence …

The interpretation of the resource-conflict link that has become most publicized—the rebel
greed hypothesis—depends on just one of many plausible mechanisms that could underlie …

Civil war is the most prevalent form of large-scale violence and is massively destructive to
life, society, and the economy. The prevention of civil war is therefore a key priority for …