Do Conflict Traps Exist? Natural Experimental Evidence from Hindu-Muslim Riots in India

Abstract

The conflict trap literature claims that ethnic violence tends to be self-perpetuating. Testing this hypothesis is challenging, however, as both past and current violence could be determined by the same underlying factors. To overcome this endogeneity problem we exploit that in India the date of Hindu festivals is exogenously determined by the lunar calendar and that when a major Hindu festival falls on a Friday, the holy day for Muslims, the probability of Hindu-Muslim riots rises sharply. Using this instrument we find that Hindu-Muslim riots are no longer serially correlated. This suggests that Hindu-Muslim riots in India are not self-perpetuating.