Project Draft Paper
Measuring the Economic Cost of Conflict in Afflicted Arab Countries
Publisher
ERF
Date
November, 2020
In this paper, I develop a systematic approach to generating credible data with the ultimate purpose of measuring the economic cost of conflict by using satellite images and geographical information systems (GIS) methods. The focus will be on four countries: Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. These are the countries that have experienced the most severe physical destruction in the region. Some preliminary calculations show that GDP and physical capital stocks are nearly halved in those countries. Specifically, I use data provided by the National Geophysical Data Center of the United States to compare the night-light intensities before and after the conflict began in those four countries. The night-light data serve as a proxy for local economic activity and exhibit a strong correlation with other major welfare indicators. I construct indices combining the contrast and dispersion of night-lights within _ne-grained geographical regions and then report the time series evolution of those indices both at country and province levels. The estimates suggest that the scale and intensity of the violence and destruction in the region have been unprecedented in the recent history and the extent of economic destruction is the largest in Syria.
Research Fellows
Semih Tumen
Professor of Economics, TED University, Turkey