The Macroeconomic Influence of Recent Political Conflicts in Africa: Generalized Synthetic Counterfactual Evidence

Abstract

This paper measures the macroeconomic influence of recent political crisis, protest and uprisings in Africa with the generalized synthetic control method and evaluates the role played by natural resource dependence on the modulation of the nexus. We find that political crisis, protests and uprisings have a significant and negative nexus with economic growth while the nexus is positive with investment and price level. For economic growth, the deviation of the actual series from the counterfactual is negative, instantaneous, persistent and highly significant; indicating non-negligible costs of the shock. Indeed, dependence on natural resources amplifies the negative influence of political crisis, protests and uprisings on GDP. Finally, the more the treated country depends on natural resources, the more it becomes resilient to the investment losses caused by political crisis.