The Sound of Their Wings: Desert Locusts and Conflicts in Africa

Do negative income shocks increase conflict risk? I study the relationship between desert locust infestations and conflict in 26 African countries. Combining geolocalized data on locust swarms and bands with information on conflict events, I construct two panel datasets at spatial resolutions 0.5◦ × 0.5◦ and 0.1◦ × 0.1◦, covering the years 1997–2017. I find a negative relationship between locust infestations and conflict after accounting for cell and country-year fixed effects and month-specific polynomials of local precipitation and temperature. However, these results may reflect under-reporting by locust survey teams in areas and years of conflict. An IV strategy, drawing on insights about the weather conditions suitable for swarm and band formation, instead yields results suggesting a positive effect of locust infestations on conflict, albeit imprecisely estimated.