The ‘conflict trap’ reduces economic growth in the shared socioeconomic pathways

Abstract

Armed conflict and economic growth are inherently coupled; armed conflict substantially reduces economic growth, while economic growth is strongly correlated with a reduction in the propensity of armed conflict. Here, we simulate the incidence of armed conflict and its effect on economic growth simultaneously along the economic pathways defined by the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). We argue that GDP per capita projections through the 21st century currently in use are too optimistic since they disregard the harm to growth caused by conflict. Our analysis indicates that the correction required to account for this is substantial – expected income is 25% lower on average across countries when taking conflict into account. The correction is particularly strong for the more pessimistic SSP3 and SSP4 where expected future incidence of armed conflict is high. There are strong regional patterns with countries with contemporaneous conflicts experiencing much higher conflict burdens and reduced economic growth by the end of century. The implications of this research indicate that today’s most marginalized societies will be substantially more vulnerable to the impact of climate change than indicated by existing income projections.

Improving on Complexity: Ideas for Enhancing Quantitative Modeling of Climate Mobility

“…[73]), or geopolitical rearrangements that are known to shift mobility patterns. [ 74 ] Forecasts and future scenarios operate not only with uncertainties of known mobility drivers but also the complexity to estimate the effect of known and unknown missing contributions.…”

Futures of conflict risk, migration and equity implications

“…In addition, economic growth in the SSPs is not responsive to conflict, whereas it is common knowledge that conflict is a major setback for economic growth (Gates et al, 2012). Petrova et al (2023) show that corrected expected incomes in the SSPs are close to 25% lower than the original at the end of the century for the most optimistic SSP when including conflict in these scenarios. This number is over 30% lower in the least optimistic ones.…”

“…This enables the development of comprehensive analyses of potential future climate and biodiversity conditions and aiding in the development of strategies to address and adapt to climate change. These narratives provide a rather linear view upon future developments, which has been criticised (Buhaug & Vestby, 2019;Petrova et al, 2023;Pielke & Ritchie, 2021), while at the same time also present the opportunity to explore future trajectories systematically and consistently.…”

“…Including projections of conflict risk particularly related to climate change impacts in the wider agenda of long-term human development would provide a more complete picture of potential issues and setbacks (Petrova et al, 2023). This would also require the development of long-term scenario projections addressing the potential effects of climate change impacts on human development.…”

“…Besides methodological progress in ML and AI techniques, the quantitative dimension of projecting long-term conflict risk could advance by the development of enhanced scenarios, by including negative feedbacks resulting from conflict on socio-economic development (Petrova et al, 2023). Existing socio-economic and political scenario projections, such as quality of governance (Andrijevic et al, 2020) and economic development (Dellink et al, 2017), very likely over-estimate future growth in developing countries due to an inability to account for common disruptive forces, such as political instability and armed conflict (Buhaug and Vestby, 2019).…”