Economic Development Lunch Series
"Resource-Curse in Reverse: The Coffee Crisis and Armed Conflict in Colombia"
Speaker: Oeindrila Dubé, Doctoral Candidate in Public Policy, Harvard University, Doctoral Fellow, CID
Wednesday, 18 October 2006
1:10 - 2:20 PM
Perkins Room, 4th Floor,
Rubenstein
Building, KSG
This paper explores the extent to which negative price shocks in the international coffee market affected armed conflict in Colombia during the 1990s. We exploit exogenous, supply-driven price shocks caused by production increases in Vietnam and Brazil to estimate whether conflict changed disproportionately in coffee-growing areas of Colombia, relative to non-coffee areas during the “coffee crisis.” Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find substantial evidence that steep declines in the international price of coffee increased both the incidence and intensity of politically-motivated violence, as measured by the number of guerilla and paramilitary attacks, and the number of casualties suffered in the civil war.
Oeindrila Dubé is a PhD candidate in Public Policy, focusing on development and labor economics. She is a doctoral fellow at the Taubman Center for Urban Policy and Governance and the Center for International Development. One current research project explores how price shocks in primary commodity markets have affected civil conflict in Colombia . The second explores how immigration affects the educational achievement of non-immigrant students in the public education system. Oeindrila holds a BA in Public Policy from Stanford University and a MPhil in Economics from the University Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
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© 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Last revised
12/15/2006