Identity, Media and Consumer Behavior

Speaker: Professor James Fenske, University of Warwick

Abstract: Event study and difference in difference analyses in a panel o fAsian grid cells over nine centuries demonstrate that greater agricultural potential due to New World crops increased violent conflict after 1500. Rising caloric potential in a typical grid cell increased conflict by roughly its mean. The result holds across several types of conflict and New World crops. It is largely driven by South Asia, a densely populated, diverse region with several competing historical states. The evidence supports increases in the gains from appropriation to the combatants as a mechanism. Population density, ur- banization, and British imperialism significantly mediate the impact of the Columbian Exchange.