Emilio Depetris-Chauvin from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, will present his research. 

Title: (De facto) Historical Ethnic Borders and Contemporary Conflict in Africa (Joint with Ömer Özak, SMU)

Abstract: We explore the effect of historical ethnic borders on contemporary conflict in Africa. Our findings indicate that both the intensive and extensive margins of current conflict are higher near historical ethnic borders. Using variations across artificial regions within an ethnicity’s historical homeland in close spatial proximity and employing advanced techniques to address bias from non-classical measurement error, we demonstrate that regions intersected by historical ethnic borders have 27 percentage points higher probability of conflict and 7.9 percentage points higher probability of being the initial location of a conflict.  We identify several key underlying mechanisms: competition for agricultural land, population pressure, and weak property rights.