Comments on: The economics of child soldiering

By: TGGP

TGGP — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:48:59 +0000

Shouldn’t high ability & outside options make potential soldiers demand higher wages?

By: mb

mb — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:51:44 +0000

Great stuff Chris. Also, I’m pretty sure Daron never sleeps. Someone should write a paper on that man’s productivity.

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:18:59 +0000

Chris, this is really fascinating. I’m wondering whether the graph of months abducted in the LRA and age is based on “how many months it took to escape” or number of months abducted? What I mean is, does your data include only those who escaped or also those who were released by the LRA as well? Since it was a regular part of their MO to abduct adults to act as porters and then release them, I’m wondering how their inclusion/exclusion from your analysis would impact your observations. (Also, with all of your experience here in northern Uganda, I’m sure you know that to say the LRA doesn’t have ‘any’ support is not quite accurate and simplifies a very complex and fluid relationship with civilians and foreign support–although obviously their support doesn’t seem to have a great concern for human rights which would as you stated make coercion costly.)

By: Chris Blattman

Chris Blattman — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:07:58 +0000

Oops. Thanks. Not sure where my brain was. As longtime blog readers know, I am my own worst editor.

By: Reuben Hood

Reuben Hood — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:04:43 +0000

The content is interesting, but don’t you mean vertical and horizontal “axis” in paragraph 6? (As opposed to “access”?)

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:46:05 +0000

Chris – this is fascinating, but I don’t like the last graph.
The regression line looks like there is a continuous linear relationship – but forced recruitment is a dummy (or is it just almost a dummy? – that seems odd, too.) It looks weird and a little misleading in any case. Box and whiskers, maybe?

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:25 +0000

Not to rain on the Acemoglu parade, but sentences like this (from the abstract) are why other people make fun of us: “Our model also predicts that the slave trade makes slaves worse off, conditional on enslavement…” But it is a fascinating sentence… have to read the paper… does slavery without the slave trade make the captured slave better off? If there is no resale market then your owner invests more in you? But suppose you could be bought by someone who would free you, would that not make you better off in expectations sense… or at least you could hope? But maybe your owner who would free you because becomes uncomfortable with owning slaves would now be able to get rid of you to a harsher master by selling you. But maybe by your work ethic you could affect your resale value. I wonder if there isn;t a philosophical parallel between people’s objections to certain things being bought and sold because it dehumanizes, to certain subjects being or not modeled, because dehumanizes….

By: Ivan

Ivan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:24:44 +0000

Incidentally, Chris, you are not the only one to have those doubts about Daron Acemoglu. I have long ago made up my mind about him: he is a robot who does not engage in any of the customary human physical functions with an army of research assistance to boot. Occam’s Razor pure and simple. Nothing else can even come close to explaining his monstrous productivity.

By: Leslie

Leslie — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:42:47 +0000

Sorry for commenting without having read the paper, but my main concern from your description, to the extent that it’s an IO model, is that “high ability” as a rebel fighter would be quite different from “high ability” for the outside options otherwise available to a fighter.