Price Transmission in Conflict-Affected States: Evidence from Cereal Markets of Somalia

Hastings, Justin V.; Phillips, Sarah; Ubilava, David; Vasnev, Andrey L.

doi:10.1093/jae/ejab012

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In addition, because rural households in Ethiopia are poorer on average than urban households, food price increases are likely more problematic in these areas. These varying impacts of the conflict across different value chains is important and consistent with other recent studies [19]. In contrast, however, our finding that urban households have suffered greater disruptions to sanitation services accords with their greater reliance on piped water infrastructure, which has been extensively damaged in the conflict.…”

Section: Plos Global Public Healthsupporting

confidence: 91%

Access to health services, food, and water during an active conflict: Evidence from Ethiopia

Abay

Berhane

et al. 2022

PLOS Glob Public Health

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Civil conflict began in Ethiopia in November 2020 and has reportedly caused major disruptions in access to health services, food, and related critical services, in addition to the direct impacts of the conflict on health and well-being. However, the population-level impacts of the conflict have not yet been systematically quantified. We analyze high frequency phone surveys conducted by the World Bank, which included measures of access to basic services, to estimate the impact of the first phase of the war (November 2020 to May 2021) on households in Tigray. After controlling for sample selection, a difference-in-differences approach is used to estimate causal effects of the conflict on population access to health services, food, and water and sanitation. Inverse probability weighting is used to adjust for sample attrition. The conflict has increased the share of respondents who report that they were unable to access needed health services by 35 percentage points (95% CI: 14–55 pp) and medicine by 8 pp (95% CI:2–15 pp). It has also increased the share of households unable to purchase staple foods by 26 pp (95% CI:7–45 pp). The share of households unable to access water did not increase, although the percentage able to purchase soap declined by 17 pp (95% CI: 1–32 pp). We document significant heterogeneity across population groups, with disproportionate effects on the poor, on rural populations, on households with undernourished children, and those living in communities without health facilities. These significant disruptions in access to basic services likely underestimate the true burden of conflict in the affected population, given that the conflict has continued beyond the survey period, and that worse-affected households may have higher rates of non-response. Documented spatial and household-level heterogeneity in the impact of the conflict may help guide rapid post-conflict responses.

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Section: Plos Global Public Healthsupporting

confidence: 91%

Access to health services, food, and water during an active conflict: Evidence from Ethiopia

Abay

Berhane

et al. 2022

PLOS Glob Public Health

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“…While the vast majority of such events tend to be localised and thus have little-to-no effect on global markets, there is suggestive evidence of conflict-related disruptions in local markets (e.g. Hastings et al, 2022).…”

Section: Other Shocksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global commodity market disruption and the fallout

Ferguson

Ubilava

2022

Aus J Agri & Res Econ

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The war in the breadbasket of Europe, which spawned at the heels of the once‐in‐a‐lifetime pandemic, sent major cereal prices spiralling upward. The unprecedented sequence of events leading to and including the war has tested the resilience of global commodity markets and the craftsmanship of policymakers. While the circumstances may differ, the disruption of global commodity markets is not exactly uncharted territory, with many examples and experiences from near and distant history. By showcasing anecdotal and empirical evidence from the past, this study puts the current crisis and its consequences in perspective and offers an outlook with a specific focus on low‐ and middle‐income countries.

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“…The components of the agricultural shock ensure that this is the case. We use international prices, which are unlikely to be affected by conflict in Africa (see also Bazzi & Blattman, 2014; McGuirk & Burke, 2020), rather than local prices to avoid the issue of reverse causality that could arise of conflict disrupts local markets (e.g., Hastings et al, 2022). That is, variation in global cereal prices is plausibly exogenous to local conflict events in Africa given that the entire continent accounts for a small fraction of global cereal production.…”

Section: Empirical Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural windfalls and the seasonality of political violence in Africa

Ubilava

Hastings

Atalay

2022

American J Agri Economics

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When the prices of cereal grains rise, social unrest and conflict become likely. In rural areas, the predation motives of perpetrators can explain the positive relationship between prices and conflict. Predation happens at places and in periods where and when spoils to be appropriated are available. In predominantly agrarian societies, such opportune times align with the harvest season. Does the seasonality of agricultural income lead to the seasonality of conflict? We address this question by analyzing over 55 thousand incidents involving violence against civilians staged by paramilitary groups across Africa during the 1997–2020 period. We investigate the crop year pattern of violence in response to agricultural income shocks via changes in international cereal prices. We find that a year‐on‐year one standard deviation annual growth of the price of the major cereal grain results in a harvest‐time spike in violence by militias in areas where this cereal grain is grown. This translates to a nearly 10% increase in violence during the early postharvest season. We observe no such change in violence by state forces or rebel groups—the other two notable actors. By further investigating the mechanisms, we show that the violence by militias is amplified after plausibly rich harvest seasons when the value of spoils to be appropriated is higher. By focusing on harvest‐related seasonality of conflict, as well as actors more likely to be involved in violence against civilians, we contribute to the growing literature on the economic causes of conflict in predominantly agrarian societies.

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Price Transmission in Conflict-Affected States: Evidence from Cereal Markets of Somalia

Cited by 8 publications

References 37 publications

Access to health services, food, and water during an active conflict: Evidence from Ethiopia

Access to health services, food, and water during an active conflict: Evidence from Ethiopia

Global commodity market disruption and the fallout

Agricultural windfalls and the seasonality of political violence in Africa

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