Population, Institutions, and Violent Conflicts – How Important is Population Pressure in Violent Resource-Based Conflicts?

Abstract This paper examines the moderating role of institutions in explaining the effects of population density, income, and high-valued natural resources (oil) on violent conflict events. Panel-Corrected Standard Errors and Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood estimators were applied. Results show that population density beyond 2293 persons per square kilometre increases violent conflict events. Further, institutional quality has a moderating effect on violent conflict events – stronger corruption control reduces the positive effect of significant oil production on violent conflict events and weakens the negative effect of per capita income on such events. The results suggest that reducing violent conflict events requires at least three things; (1) keeping population density below 2293 persons per square kilometre, (2) investing in institutional quality improvements, and (3) raising incomes.