The Economics of Social Conflict

这个项目考察了经济发展、收入和资产分配以及跨种族、地域或经济群体的社会冲突的出现(或持续)之间的联系。这项研究的依据是两个基本的风格化事实，它们是发展中社会内部冲突的特征。首先，经济很重要。冲突与人均收入和自然资源收入等经济变量密切相关。第二，典型的“阶级冲突”-或按经济界限划分的冲突-很少见：交战群体通常用种族、种姓、地理或宗教等非经济标志来划分。这个项目以这些事实为出发点。一个核心问题涉及经济动机和非经济群体标记的共存。非经济指标可以用来将某些群体排除在经济进步之外。事实上，交战组织(在经济上)越相似，就越有可能使用这样的战略。因此，这个项目的第一部分构建了冲突中的“群体形成”理论，即现有的社会标记物(如宗教)可以用来以各种方式创造“局内人”和“局外人”。在一个各种各样的副业都可以免费提供的世界里，每一场潜在的冲突原则上都可以，因为所有的冲突都会破坏资源。然而，由于有多种族裔标志，其中任何一个都可能被援引，因此可能不可能在同一历史时刻处理每一种潜在威胁。有人会争辩说，战后的制度，如累进税制或土地改革，已经很好地应对了阶级冲突的幽灵，但也为来自其他非经济市场的威胁敞开了大门。该项目的第二部分将这些想法应用于对印度印度教-穆斯林暴力的实证研究。如果一方在社会和政治上更有能力将暴力用于经济目的，那么受害者群体收入的增加应该会对冲突产生积极影响，而侵略者群体收入的增加应该会产生微不足道的影响。这种预测是可以测试的，该项目也提出了这样的建议。利用全国抽样调查数据以及关于印度教-穆斯林冲突的独特数据集，初步结果表明，穆斯林收入与未来的冲突呈正相关，而印度教收入没有这种影响。该项目将在此基础上使用额外的数据源并进行几种不同的稳健性检查。该项目的第三部分开发了一个理论模型，并在冲突与众所周知的社会分配指数之间建立了结构联系，如不平等、分化和两极分化。结果表明，三个特定的指标决定了冲突，它们的相对权重揭示了经济中结构参数的潜在价值。PI还计划撰写一本关于社会冲突经济学的全书手稿。当然，这个项目的结果将成为这本书的重要组成部分，但其目的是以一种连贯的方式，将经济学、政治学和社会学关于发展中国家冲突这一主题的大量文献汇集在一起。广泛的影响：这个项目使用经济理论来开发超出经济边界的可验证的预测。例如，预测的非经济群体标记与从冲突中获得经济收益的可能性并存是一个中心主题。同样，这个项目的第二部分--从经济数据中识别侵略者的身份--体现了超越经济界限的尝试。政治科学家、社会学家和民族志学者将发现这是有用的，是对他们自己工作的补充。第三部分中的理论产生了冲突与各种分配指标之间的可评估的关系，这将为该地区未来的实证研究提供信息。最后，从更广泛的社会和经济角度来看，本项目提出的问题具有首要重要性。经济增长会抑制冲突，还是会加剧冲突？不平等和冲突之间有什么关系？为什么阶级冲突可能会让位于种族冲突？种族冲突是源于某种原始的仇恨和不信任，还是精心策划的？如果是这样的话，一个人如何准确地写下一个不假定参与者是完全非理性的冲突理论？虽然该项目牢固地植根于经济推理的逻辑，但这些问题超出了经济学的范畴。

This project examines the connections between economic development, the distribution of income and assets, and the emergence (or persistence) of social conflict across ethnic, geographical or economic groups. The research is informed by two basic stylized facts that characterize internal conflict in developing societies. First, economics matters. Conflicts have strong associations with economic variables such as per-capita income and natural resource revenues. Second, classical "class conflicts" --- or conflict demarcated along economic lines --- are rare: warring groups are often delineated by noneconomic markers such as ethnicity, caste, geography or religion.This project takes these facts as points of departure. A central question concerns the coexistence of economic motives and noneconomic group markers. Noneconomic markers can be used to exclude certain groups from economic progress. Indeed, the more (economically) similar the warring groups, the more such a strategy is likely to be used. Accordingly, the first part of this project constructs a theory of "group formation" in conflict, the idea being that existing social markers (such as religion) can be used to create "insiders" and "outsiders" in a variety of ways. In a world in which all sorts of sidepayments can costlessly be made, each potential conflict can, in principle, because all conflict destroys resources. However, with a multiplicity of ethnic markers, any one of which may be invoked, it may be impossible to deal with every potential threat at the same historical moment of time. It will be argued that postwar institutions, such as progressive taxation or land reform, have evolved well to deal with the specter of class conflict, but have left the door open for threats from other noneconomic markers.The second part of the project applies these ideas to an empirical study of Hindu-Muslim violence in India. If one side is socially and politically more able to use violence for economic ends, then an increase in the victim group's income should have a positive impact on conflict, while an increase in the aggressor group's income should have an insignificant effect. This sort of prediction can be tested, and the project proposes to do so. Using National Sample survey data along with a unique dataset on Hindu-Muslim conflict, preliminary results indicate that Muslim incomes are positively associated with future conflict, while Hindu incomes have no such effect. The project will build on this foundation by using additional data sources and running several different robustness checks.The third part of the project develops a theoretical model, and establishes a structural connection between conflict and well-known indices of social distribution such as inequality, fractionalization and polarization. It is shown that three particular indices determine conflict, and the relative weights on them reveal the underlying values of structural parameters in the economy.The PI also plans a full-length book manuscript on the Economics of Social Conflict. Certainly, the results from this project will form an important part of the book, but the intention is to put together, in a cohesive way, a large literature from economics, political science and sociology on the topic of conflict in developing countries.Broader Impacts: this project uses economic theory to develop testable predictions that reach beyond economic boundaries. For instance, the predicted juxtaposition of noneconomic group markers with the possibility of economic gains from conflict is a central theme. Likewise, the second part of this project, which discerns aggressor identity from economic data, exemplifies the attempt to go beyond economic boundaries. IPolitical scientists, sociologists and ethnographers will find this useful and complementary to their own work. The theory in part 3 generates a estimable relationship between conflict and various distributional indicators which will inform future empirical research in the area.Finally, from a broader social and economic perspective, the questions asked under this project are of first-order importance. Does economic growth stifle conflict, or might it exacerbate it? What is the relationship between inequality and conflict? Why might class conflict give way to ethnic conflict? Does ethnic conflict stem from some primordial hatred and mistrust, or is it carefully engineered? If so, how precisely might one write down a theory of conflict that does not presume that participants are plain irrational? While the project is firmly grounded in the logic of economic reasoning, these questions go beyond economics.