Regional Inequality and Internal Conflict

This paper studies the influence of regional inequality within countries on internal conflicts. Regional inequalities are measured by the population‐weighted coefficient of variation of regional GDP per capita. As the main innovation, I use a panel dataset of country‐level regional inequalities, which covers 56 countries (835 subnational regions) between 1980 and 2009. I also consider a broader cross section dataset for the year 2005, which covers 110 countries (1569 subnational regions). Conflict is measured by the incidence of civil war (UCDP/PRIO data) and a risk measure of internal conflict (war, terrorism and riots) provided by the PRS Group's International Country Risk Guide. Logit estimations are employed as well as OLS fixed effects panel regressions. I find that regional inequalities increase the risk of internal conflict.