Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Klaus Ackermann
Author-Email: klaus.ackermann@monash.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: SoDa Labs and Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics, Monash Business School, Monash University
Author-Name: Sefa Awaworyi Churchill
Author-Email: sefa.churchill@rmit.edu.au
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, Finance & Marketing, RMIT University
Author-Name: Russell Smyth
Author-Email: russell.smyth@monash.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University
Title: Mobile phone coverage and violent conflict
Abstract: We examine the effects of mobile phone coverage on violent conflicts in Africa using a new monthly panel dataset on mobile phone coverage at 55 55 km grid cell levels for 32 African countries covering the period from 2008 to 2018. The base rate of a conflict event in a month across our data set is 0.0039 with a standard deviation of 0.0620. We find that access to mobile phone coverage increases the probability of a conflict occurring in the next month by 0.0028. This finding is robust to a suite of sensitivity checks including the use of various specifications and alternative datasets. We examine heterogeneity on the impact of mobile phone coverage across state-based conflict, non-state-based conflict and one-sided conflict, and find that our results are being driven by non-state conflicts. We examine economic growth as a channel through which mobile phone coverage influences conflict. In doing so, we construct new satellite data for night-time light activity as a proxy for economic growth. We find that economic activity is a channel through which mobile phone coverage influences conflicts, and that higher economic growth weakens the positive effect of mobile phone coverage on conflict.
Creation-Date: 2021-05
File-URL: http://soda-wps.s3-website-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/RePEc/ajr/sodwps/2021-06.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Number: 2021-06
Classification-JEL: D74,C23,O13,Q34
Keywords: Mobile phones  , Cell phone coverage, Violence, Conflict, Africa
Handle: RePEc:ajr:sodwps:2021-06