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News | June 16, 2015

Paper Travers Child published in Defense and Peace Economics

TI PhD student Travers Child published a paper in the journal Defence and Peace Economics. His paper on ‘Community preferences, insurgency, and the success of reconstruction spending’ is forthcoming and was published online on June 15. Coauthor is David Scoones (University of Victoria, Canada).

Travers is an alumnus of the TI MPhil program (2013). He is a PhD candidate in development economics at the VU University Amsterdam. His PhD research is funded through a Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) grant. Currently, he is on a visiting research placement at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Abstract

Existing theory on counterinsurgency does not adequately explain persistent insurrection in face of the reconstruction work currently underway in Afghanistan and Iraq. We starkly depart from the literature by developing a simple model of reconstruction allowing misalignment of occupier spending with community preferences. Insurgency arises endogenously as a result of the mix of spending rather than its level. Occupier insistence on its preferred path of reconstruction may lead to fewer projects of any kind being completed. In equilibrium, the occupier may accept an endogenous insurgency to achieve a preferred project mix, or be constrained in its choice even when no insurgency occurs.