Article
Climate Change and the Opportunity Cost of Conflict
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
(2020)
Abstract
A growing empirical literature associates climate anomalies with increased risk of violent conflict. This association has been portrayed as a bellwether of future societal instability as the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are predicted to increase. This paper investigates the theoretical foundation of this claim. A seminal microeconomic model of opportunity costs-a mechanism often thought to drive climate-conflict relationships-is extended by considering realistic changes in the distribution of climate-dependent agricultural income. Results advise caution in using empirical associations between short-run climate anomalies and conflicts to predict the effect of sustained shifts in climate regimes: Although war occurs in bad years, conflict may decrease if agents expect more frequent bad years. Theory suggests a nonmonotonic relation between climate variability and conflict that emerges as agents adapt and adjust their behavior to the new income distribution. We identify 3 measurable statistics of the income distribution that are each unambiguously associated with conflict likelihood. Jointly, these statistics offer a unique signature to distinguish opportunity costs from competing mechanisms that may relate climate anomalies to conflict.
Keywords
- violence,
- agriculture,
- rainfall,
- income shock,
- microeconomic theory
Disciplines
Publication Date
January 28, 2020
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1914829117
Citation Information
Kevin R. Roche, Michèle Müller-Itten, David N. Dralle, Diogo Bolster, et al.. "Climate Change and the Opportunity Cost of Conflict" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Vol. 117 Iss. 4 (2020) p. 1935 - 1940 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kevin-roche/2/