Economic Effects of the War in Donbas: Nightlights and the Ukrainian fight for freedom
Paper available to internal Duke affiliates only upon request.
Professor Charles Becker, Faculty Advisor
Professor Grace Kim, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: F51; H56; O52; N44
The Impact of Conflict on Economic Activity: Night Lights and the Bosnian Civil War
by Stephanie Dodd
Abstract
The tendency of violent conflict to suppress economic activity is well documented in the civil war economic literature. However, differential consequences resulting from distinct characteristics of conflicts have not been rigorously studied. Utilizing new conflict data on the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war from Becker, Devine, Dogo, and Margolin (2018) and DSMP-OLS night light data as a proxy for economic activity, this paper investigates the disparate economic impacts that different types of conflict have on Bosnia’s municipalities.
This investigation first uses data from other Yugoslavian countries to impute pre-war night light values for conflict-affected Bosnian municipalities. Next, a spatial autocorrelation model with fixed effects is used to determine if and how the occurrence of different types of violence vary in their implications for economic activity. This analysis finds that the five types of warfare identified in the context of the Bosnian Civil war have different impacts on night lights and economic activity.
Professor Charles Becker,Faculty Advisor
Professor Grace Kim, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: F52, H56, O52
The Future of Economic Geopolitics: Network Effects in Intercultural Trade
By Joshua Curtis
Using a regression discontinuity design on a gravity model of trade among 36 Middle Eastern and East Asian countries between 1980 and 2014, this study demonstrates network effects in trade. A small improvement in trade between subsets of two cultural blocs diminishes the effect of cultural similarity on trade between all members of the two cultural blocs. The result holds regardless of whether cultural similarity was originally a boon or drag on trade. Furthermore, international businesses adjust to new intercultural acumen very rapidly. The effect demonstrated herein points toward an answer to economic dilemmas posed by Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.”
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Advisor: Professor Lori Leachman, | JEL Codes: F1, F5, B27
Reforming Turkey’s Judiciary to Meet European Union Standards: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
By Alican Arcasoy
Membership in the European Union has long been a goal of the Turkish Government. The economic benefits of access to the single European market are highly attractive for a developing country like Turkey. However, joining the European Union requires a number of costly reforms. The institutional, political, and economic changes demanded by the Copenhagen Criteria can rack up a large bill for some governments. This paper will focus on the costs of reforming Turkey’s Judiciary to meet European Union standards, and whether or not those costs outweigh the economic benefits of membership.
Advisor: Michael Munger | JEL Codes: F5, F53, F59
Deciphering Chinese Financing To African Countries
By Gwen Geng
The paper considers what attracts Chinese aid and Chinese investment to African countries and what kinds of Chinese financing projects are more likely to have unrevealed financing amount. The main database used is AidData: China’s Official Finance to Africa 2000-2012. It contains 2356 Chinese financing projects to 50 African countries. The results suggest that Chinese aid supports less developed economies, while Chinese investment favors countries with resource abundance and political conditions conducive to profit-making. The findings show that projects with unrevealed funding amounts tend to fall under investment and the government sector among other categories, raising questions on financing secrecy.
Advisors: Robert Garlick and Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: F13, F54, N47, N57, O24, R11, R15
Evaluating the Motivation and Feasibility Theory in Predicting the Onset and Severity of Civil Conflict
By Ishita Chordia
This paper looks at 187 countries from 1960-2004 and explores the economic indicators of the onset and the severity of civil conflicts, where civil conflicts are described as small clashes that result in 25 or more battle deaths per conflict. For conflict onset, I test a model that uses the Motivation Theory to predict when a conflict will begin while for conflict severity. I test a model that uses the Feasibility Theory to predict how severe a conflict will become. In the final section, I reverse the models and test the ability of the Motivation Theory to predict conflict severity and the ability of the Feasibility Theory to predict conflict onset. I find that the Motivation Theory performs ber at predicting both conflict onset and severity.
Advisors: Kent Kimbrough, Bahar Leventoglu, Duncan Thomas
JEL Codes: F51, F52, O57 | Tagged: Conflict, Feasibility, International Security, Motivation, Peace
