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 i