SEMINARIO 18 DICEMBRE 2025
In this paper, we leverage a quasi-experimental design and innovative sources of information to examine the impact of rising social conflict and political instability in Haiti.
By exploiting geographical heterogeneity and leveraging data from Facebook and satellite imagery, we show the impact of different types of violence on proxies of economic activity in the context of countries with limited data availability. In the short term, we find that one additional violent event reduces economic activity by approximately 10% within the ten-day window following its occurrence. In the medium term, one additional violent event is associated with a decline of approximately 2.7% in economic activity over the subsequent five-month period. Importantly, the Facebook data also allows for a disaggregation of the effects by sector, with the sectors most impacted by rising insecurity being business and utility services, home services and professional services.
The long-term estimates indicate that an additional violent event is associated with a 2.3% decline in economic activity, as proxied by nighttime light intensity, one year following the event. These results show a sharp initial decline in economic activity, followed by smaller but lasting contractions, indicating limited recovery after violent events.