The Economic Drivers of State Violence against Civilians: Evidence from Myanmar

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Davis, C. Austin; Lopez-Pena, Paula; Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq; Wen, Jaya Y.
• 署名单位: American University; Queens University - Canada; Yale University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Deakin University; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueaf098
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: NATURAL-RESOURCES; CONFLICT; WAR; curse

摘要

Violence against civilians has killed nearly one million people worldwide and displaced millions more over the past three decades. This paper examines the economic forces driving civilian persecution in Myanmar. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show that violence against civilians increases in rice-suitable townships when rice prices rise, the opposite pattern from that documented in the literature on two-sided conflicts. We argue that large power asymmetries inherent in civilian persecution explain this difference. Higher returns from expropriating rice harvests and rice-growing inputs during these periods drive the pattern we observe in Myanmar, which we corroborate with an original survey of Rohingya refugees forcibly displaced to Bangladesh. Our work demonstrates how to generate systematic and representative evidence on civilian persecution in politically sensitive and data-poor contexts.