The Economics of Conflict

Dominic Rohner's research focuses on political and development economics. Several of his recent papers have studied the role of natural resources and social capital for explaining armed conflict. During his stay at CES, he will work on a research project that studies the impact of mining extraction on civil conflict in Africa, using dis-aggregated geo-referenced data and making use of very precise information on the characteristics of the ethnic groups involved in fighting, which allows a disentanglement of the main mechanisms at work.

While at CES he will deliver three lectures on the economics of conflict (10–12 February), in which he will provide an overview of the main theoretical frameworks and empirical results of research in this field, with a special emphasis on the literature on social capital, natural resources and conflict.

Having obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge in 2008, Dominic Rohner has held positions at the Universities of York and Zurich before starting as Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Lausanne in 2012. He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association. His research has been published in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Development Economics, European Economic Review and Journal of Economic Growth.