Oil price uncertainty and conflicts: evidence from the middle east and north africa

We empirically study the relationship between oil price uncertainty and conflict incidence by using different Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) models, also augmented with Heterogeneous (VHAR) components. We build two measures for oil price uncertainty and investigate the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) interstate conflict, civil conflict and terrorist attacks data. Our results show that uncertainty in the oil market increases the incidence of conflict in the region. By further decomposing the model for OPEC and non-OPEC members of the region, we find that while the OPEC members immunise themselves against conflict, oil price uncertainty affects the conflict in non-OPEC members positively.