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This paper investigates the relationship between state-based conflict and entrepreneurship. From a survey of the existing literature, we formulate two hypotheses: (1) state-based conflict has a negative association with productive and opportunity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship, and (2) a positive association with unproductive and necessity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship. We test these hypotheses by drawing on several state-based conflict and entrepreneurship measures, using appropriate estimators, and employing robustness checks. The evidence supports our hypotheses. Necessity-motivated start-up entrepreneurship is, on average, almost three times higher in countries in conflict than in countries not in conflict. Development level matters. In countries with less unemployment, more finance, and higher levels of physical, human capital and GDP, entrepreneurship is more resilient, and the ratio of female-to-male entrepreneurs in opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship higher.

We survey selected parts of the growing literature on the microeconomics of violent conflict, identifying where academic research has started to establish stylized facts and where methodological and knowledge gaps remain. We focus our review on the role of civilian agency in conflict; on wartime institutions; and on the private sector in conflict. Future research requires new and better sources of data on conflict and conflict impacts, including from household surveys in conflict-affected areas. Impact evaluations can also be valuable sources of insights about how conflict impacts on people and how peacebuilding and reconstruction can be improved. We also see the need for much more detailed studies on the long-term impacts of conflict; on the linkages between agriculture, food security, and conflict; on the role of technology for peace; and on the micro-macro linkages of conflict, as well its macroeconomic costs. Finally, future research would benefit from linking analysis of large-scale violent conflict with other forms of violence, instability, fragility, and humanitarian crises.

Despite the widespread prevalence of violent conflict in most destitute regions of the world, little is known about the realities of individuals affected and the difficult decisions they have to take. In this report we address this issue by providing an insight into how individuals cope during post-conflict recovery in Northern Uganda. We particularly compare individuals who still reside in displacement camps with those that have already reintegrated into their original communities. Our focus is on opportunities and constraints they encounter during recovery with regard to employment choices. Individuals who reside in camps may be more inclined to engage in certain welfare-enhancing activities than their counterparts who chose to reintegrate. Results highlight the possibility of displaced individuals possessing productive skills that may be relevant for recovery.

In this working paper we provide an overview of two recent special journal issues on violent conflict and entrepreneurship. These are the special issue of the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (2011) and the special issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (2013), devoted to the impact of violent conflict on entrepreneurship in developing countries. In the overview we start by defining entrepreneurship and conflict, and provide a succinct summary of the existing literature. From this it is clear there is a lack of studies dealing with how violent conflict impacts at the micro-level on firms or entrepreneurs. We then assess how the papers in the two special issues address this lacuna. We find from these that violent conflict has diverse impacts on entrepreneurs, firms, their investment and production processes, and that there are many ways to overcome the legacies of fighting. In fact, the post-war peace dividend and the reconstruction of markets and economies more generally, critically depend on public policies promoting entrepreneurship. Areas for further research are noted.

The paper explores factors that influence the household decision to leave internal displacement camps in the immediate aftermath of violent conflict. Our analysis is based on two sources of information: household survey data collected in northern Uganda for households that were displaced by the civil conflict, and geo-referenced data on armed conflict events, with which we construct our developed index of recent conflict exposure. We compare households that moved out of camps with those that remained in the camps after the region was declared safe from rebel incursions. The study covers the first few months of the end of conflict, when return was regarded as largely voluntary. We find that a history of conflict both at the place of residence, and at the expected place of return reduces the likelihood of return. Access to camp services overall encourages households to stay in camps, although the effect varies with the proportion of young household members. Results also show that a history of economic skills poses varying effects on return decisions. While experience in cultivation is associated with a high likelihood of moving out of the camp, households with members with recent experience in trading are less inclined to return. From a policy perspective, the results point to the need for recovery initiatives to ensure access to adequate infrastructures in return locations in order to fast-track reintegration.

This paper is the first study that analyzes the drivers of political protest using longitudinal data from a critical revolution that changed -at least temporarily- the political landscape in a transition country. We make use of a rich dataset consisting of panel data collected before and after the so called Orange revolution in Ukraine. Our empirical approach tackles two different -and equally interesting- features of the revolution: the determinants of participation (both in the protests and counter-protests) and the selection of participants into different levels of involvement (i.e. intensity of participation). We consider different drivers of participation, from traditional proxies for opportunities and grievances, but we also analyze the role of political and economic preferences, risk tolerance, life satisfaction, and indicators of network connectivity. What emerges from this study is a more nuanced pattern of participation that does not link uniquely to a single theoretical model.

The aim of this paper is to study the short and long-term fertility effects of mass violent conflict on different population sub-groups. The authors pool three nationally representative demographic and health surveys from before and after the genocide in Rwanda, identifying conflict exposure of the survivors in multiple ways. The analysis finds a robust effect of genocide on fertility, with a strong replacement effect for lost children. Having lost siblings reduces fertility only in the short term. Most interesting is the continued importance of the institution of marriage in determining fertility and in reducing fertility for the large group of widows in Rwanda.

We study the effect of living in an internally displaced people's (IDP) camp on economic activity choices in post war northern Uganda. As the decision to relocate from a camp is voluntary, camp residents may be different from returnees. We merge household data with micro-level conflict data to control for endogeneity (selection of households out from camps). We find a strong effect of camp residence on activity choices. Particularly, individuals in IDP camps are more inclined to cultivate and engage in trading, than those who returned. However they are less likely to make handicrafts and participate in any of the wide range of activities. The observation that individuals living in camps strive to ensure self-reliance underscores the need for livelihood interventions and other recovery programmes to target not only returnee households but also create opportunities for households still in displacement. This should be coupled with improvement of security around camps to foster increased economic activity. Results also point to the need to fast-track infrastructure development and stimulate local demand that allows returnees to self-sustain.

The overall goal of the report is to increase the capacity of researchers and policy makers to identify comparatively, and across time, how individuals, households and communities are affected by violent conflict. The report provides an extensive overview of existing practices and datasets used in this field of research. We investigate existing methodologies and data-bases used to operationalize the variables of interest and discuss the channels linking violent conflict to individual and household welfare. Special attention is paid to methodological issues on how to design a module and operationalize variables that allow researchers to analyze the welfare effects of violent conflict across countries and across time. We develop and discuss a generic household module that can be easily inserted into future socio-economic surveys implemented in conflict-affected countries. This module will enable researchers to address specific violence-related issues comparatively across different conflict settings and systematically across time. The module proposed builds on previous experiences on survey designs in conflict-affected areas. We review existing conflict- and violence-related questionnaires, with a special focus on World Bank's Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS), and propose suggestions on how to improve questionnaires in order to deepen the understanding of the nature of violent conflict and the channels whereby conflict and violence affect the welfare characteristics and choices of individuals and households in conflict areas.

We analyse the role of mass violent conflict in influencing individual expectations. We hypothesise that individuals are likely to report negative expectations if they were exposed to conflict events in the past. We combine individual and household level data from the Northern Uganda Livelihood Survey of 2007 with a disaggregated conflict exposure index based on the Armed Conflict Locations Events Data (ACLED). We run logistic regression models to study the strength of the association between conflict and expectations. Results indicate that conflict intensity is correlated with a decrease in the probability of expecting economic recovery. The effect of conflict on general welfare however is less robust.

This paper analyzes the distributive impacts of violent conflicts, which is in contrast to previous literature that has focused on the other direction. We use cross-country panel data for the time period 1960-2005 to estimate war-related changes in income inequality. Our results indicate rising levels of inequality during war and especially in the early period of post-war reconstruction. However, we find that this rise in income inequality is not permanent. While inequality peaks around five years after the end of a conflict, it declines again to pre-war levels within the end of the first post-war period. Lagged effects of conflict and only subsequent adjustments of redistributive policies in the period of post-war reconstruction seem to be valid explanations for these patterns of inequality. A series of alternative specifications confirms the main findings of the analysis.

The estimation of the costs of conflict is currently receiving a lot of attention in the literature. This paper aims to give a thorough overview of the existing literature, first by addressing the history of case studies that address conflict costs and second by looking at the existing body of cross-country analyses for conflict costs. In addition to the existing cross-country literature, a number of studies that only concern themselves with particular elements of conflict costs are included as well. In the end, this paper combines the insights from these previous analyses to explore how much room there is to further improve the existing studies. Specific recommendations are given how to proceed with the development of the field of conflict cost measurement.

This paper provides a critical analysis of the possible methods, data sources and the existing results of the field of 'the economic costs of mass violent conflict' by identifying strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature. The report evaluates content, methods, and data sources of the existing studies. Regarding the content, the studies offer a broad range of tested cause and impact variables. However, their selection of considered factors is quite sketchy, and a general theoretical underpinning is missing. This warrants above all a better understanding of the channels of indirect effects of the economic consequences of mass violent conflicts. Out of the combination of findings from the different studies we can hypothesize that investment, military expenditure, sectoral shifts, and institutions and policies are key channels. To consider the economic costs, aside from accounting, most studies rely on counterfactual regression analyses. Also with respect to the methodology, an evolutionary progress has not taken place in the literature. The most prominent data sets used are the COW and the UCDP/PRIO for conflicts and the Penn World Tables and the World Development Indicators for socioeconomic data. Based on the critical survey of the literature we propose three models for estimating crosscountry costs of mass violent conflict. These models differ by complexity, ranging from standard regression analysis to computable general equilibrium models. We also discuss other forms of violent conflicts and possibilities to analyze them by using the proposed models.

This paper analyses post-war coping strategies by farm households in developing countries. The analysis is based on a portfolio model of activity choices in war-affected rural Sub- Saharan Africa. A case study using farm household survey data estimates the determinants of agricultural coping strategies in post-war Mozambique. Post-war coping strategies differ from pre- and mid-crisis coping strategies. War-affected households are forced to adopt very risky coping strategies that re-enforce their vulnerability. Households choose between market and non-market forms of exchange and even consider exiting markets entirely. Post-war reconstruction policy should focus on re-capitalizing households, providing public goods and establishing markets.

The relationship between land investment and tenure security is usually tested in land scarce but peaceful areas. This article examines instead the effects of land abundance and war for investment and tenure security. The paper demonstrates that war enhances land abundance. This implies that farm size for the analysis of land investment and tenure security. The paper formally tests for land abundance and estimates a system of equations using farm survey data from post-war Mozambique. Farm size is found to be a key determinant of both investment and tenure security. This raises important policy issues for post-war reconstruction.