The Political Economy of the Maoist Conflict in India: An Empirical Analysis

We study the Maoist/Naxalite conflict in India by constructing a comprehensive district-level database combining conflict data from four different terrorism databases to socioeconomic and geography data from myriad sources. Using data on 360 districts for three time periods, we find that land inequality and lower incomes are important factors behind the conflict. Exploiting the micro structure of the data we show that growth of incomes of Scheduled Tribes significantly decreases the intensity of the conflict. Finally, we show that historical property rights institutions from colonial times that go back centuries affect present day conflict outcomes.