Darin Christensen

Darin Christensen

Associate Professor of Public Policy & Political Science

UCLA, Luskin School of Public Affairs

I am a political scientist interested in related international development problems:

  1. What are the causes and consequences of conflict?
  2. What policies promote stability and the provision of other public goods and services?

My research uses fine-grained, often geo-spatial, data; employs natural or field experiments to identify causal relationships; and applies game-theoretic models to motivate and interpret empirical analysis. I often collaborate with NGOs and government agencies in the Global South.

Education

  • PhD in Political Science, 2016

    Stanford University

  • MA in Economics, 2016

    Stanford University

  • BA in Political Science, 2008

    Duke University

Working Papers

(2024). The Point of Attack: Where and Why Does Oil Cause Armed Conflict in Africa?. Accepted pending replication, Journal of Politics.

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(2024). Interest-based Negotiation over Natural Resources: Experimental Evidence from Liberia. R&R Journal of the European Economic Association.

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(2024). Ethical Oversight in Impact Evaluations: External Advisory Committees to Assess Programming Risks. Working Paper.

(2024). Using Machine Learning to Map Artisanal Mining across Five Countries. Working Paper.

Articles

(2024). How Budgets Shape Power Sharing in Autocracies. Quarterly Journal of Political Science.

PDF Dataset SI

(2022). How Does Armed Conflict Shape Investment? Evidence from the Mining Sector. Journal of Politics.

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(2021). Adoption of Community Monitoring Improves Common Pool Resource Management Across Contexts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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(2021). Citizen Monitoring Promotes Informed and Inclusive Forest Governance in Liberia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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(2021). Building Resilient Health Systems: Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone and the 2014 Ebola Outbreak. Quarterly Journal of Economics.

PDF Dataset Policy Brief

(2021). Do Commodity Price Shocks Cause Armed Conflict? A Meta-Analysis of Natural Experiments. American Political Science Review.

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(2020). Community-based Crisis Response: Evidence from Sierra Leone's Ebola Outbreak. AEA Papers and Proceedings.

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(2016). Measuring the Economic Effect of Alien Tort Statute Liability. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization.

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(2013). Defunding Dissent: Restrictions on Aid to NGOs. Journal of Democracy.

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(2013). Labor Standards, Labor Endowments, and the Evolution of Inequality. International Studies Quarterly.

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Books &
Chapters

(2023). Political Economy. In Andrew Rudalevige and Joshua Tucker, A Political Science Experiment. CritReview.

Project

Resources

Using IOM Flow Monitoring Data to Describe Migration in West and Central Africa

Who is moving in West and Central Africa and why?

Evaluating Due Diligence Programs for Conflict Minerals

A Matched Analysis of 3T Mines in Eastern DRC

Tracking Concessions in Sierra Leone

Nationwide census to catalog mining and agricultural concessions.

Teaching

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