The empirical relationship between natural resources and conflict in Africa is not very well understood. Using a novel geocoded dataset we are able to construct a quasi-natural experiment to explore the causal effects of oilfield and mineral discoveries on intra-state armed conflict in Africa at the grid-cell level corresponding to a spatial resolution of 0.5 x 0.5 degrees latitude and longitude. We find no evidence of resource discoveries triggering conflict after controlling for property rights institutions, past discoveries, grid-cell and year fixed effects, grid-cell specific trends, and country-year fixed effects. Resource discoveries are associated with improved local living standards and increased political patronage both of which reduce conflict. We observe little or no heterogeneity in the relationship across resource types, discovery size, distance to discovery and borders, and institutions. The relationship remains unchanged at higher grid-cell resolution, and regional and national levels.

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非洲的自然资源与冲突：数据显示什么？

自然资源与非洲冲突之间的经验关系还不是很清楚。使用新的地理编码数据集，我们能够构建一个准自然实验，以在对应于纬度 0.5 x 0.5 度的空间分辨率的网格单元级别探索油田和矿产发现对非洲国家内部武装冲突的因果影响和经度。在控制产权制度、过去的发现、网格单元和年份固定效应、网格单元特定趋势和国家年份固定效应后，我们没有发现资源发现触发冲突的证据。资源发现与当地生活水平的提高和政治赞助的增加有关，这两者都减少了冲突。我们观察到不同资源类型之间的关系很少或没有异质性，发现规模、发现距离和边界以及机构。这种关系在更高的网格单元分辨率以及区域和国家层面保持不变。