ankhaa0813/air_pollution_conflict

Up in the Air – The Effects of Air Pollution on Conflict in West Africa # Up in the Air – The Effects of Air Pollution on Conflict in West Africa This data repository contains codes and relevant maps of my master's thesis ## Master Thesis Code and Data Repository This repository contains the following R scripts and data: * Data Cleaning: Preprocess data for analysis. * Data Visualization: Create data visualizations. * MIDAS cleaning: Prepare MODIS data for analysis. * Empirical Analysis: Conduct empirical analysis using R Markdown. * Spillover cleaning: Clean and prepare data at a 0.5 vs. 0.5 grid level for spill-over effects. ## Following maps: * Figure_1: Air pollution over time * Figure 2: Spatial distribution of air pollution, PM2.5 * Figure 3: Conflicts over time * Figure 4: Spatial distribution of conflict incidences * Figure 5: Spatial distribution of Dust optical depth ## Abstract Despite the recent remarkable economic growth, accompanied by a substantial rise in ambient air pollution, the conflict in West Africa has shown no signs of improvement. Does worsening air pollution affect conflict? Using grid-level data, this thesis examines the effect of exposure to ambient air pollution on conflict in 16 West African countries (2003-2009). For identification strategies, I estimate models with high dimensional fixed effects and instrumental variables using dust from the Saharan desert during the Harmattan season. The findings suggest that air pollution does increase the probability and intensity of conflicts. For instance, a one standard deviation increase in air pollution (0.03mg/m3) raises the likelihood of conflict outbreak by 0.14% and the number of fatalities by 0.18%. These small but causal effects are robust to alternative specifications, standard error adjustments, alternative conflict datasets, and placebo tests. Using a general equilibrium model of insurgency, I explore potential mechanisms and reveal that agricultural productivity and a rise in health expenditure could be transmission channels between air pollution and c …