Mobile phone coverage and violent conflict
| Autor: | Klaus Ackermann, Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Russell Smyth |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
021110 strategic
defence & security studies Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management Economics and Econometrics Light Activity business.industry Event (computing) 05 social sciences 0211 other engineering and technologies 02 engineering and technology Grid cell Proxy (climate) Mobile phone Satellite data 0502 economics and business 050207 economics Telecommunications business Communication channel |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 188:269-287 |
| ISSN: | 0167-2681 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.04.038 |
| Popis: | We examine the effects of mobile phone coverage on violent conflicts in Africa using a new monthly panel dataset on mobile phone coverage at 55×55 km grid cell levels for 32 African countries covering the period from 2008 to 2018. The base rate of a conflict event in a month across our data set is 0.0039 with a standard deviation of 0.0620. We find that access to mobile phone coverage increases the probability of a conflict occurring in the next month by 0.0028. This finding is robust to a suite of sensitivity checks including the use of various specifications and alternative datasets. We examine heterogeneity on the impact of mobile phone coverage across state-based conflict, non-state-based conflict and one-sided conflict, and find that our results are being driven by non-state conflicts. We examine economic growth as a channel through which mobile phone coverage influences conflict. In doing so, we construct new satellite data for night-time light activity as a proxy for economic growth. We find that economic activity is a channel through which mobile phone coverage influences conflicts, and that higher economic growth weakens the positive effect of mobile phone coverage on conflict. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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