Essays in development economics conflict resolution mechanisms and epidemics

Half of the population in sub-Saharan Africa lives with less than 1.25 dollars per day. Poor institutions and the recurrence of conflicts and epidemics are the main arguments advanced in the economic literature to explain this dramatic persistence of poverty. This dissertation studies how conflicts and risky behaviors can be prevented in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. The first chapter examines how property rights are effectively enforced in sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, it studies the economic consequences of the co-existence of customary and statutory judicial systems in sub-Saharan Africa. It shows that the overlap of competence between the two judicial systems encourages rent-seeking and bribery, and leads to high rates of petty crimes and civil disputes. The second chapter studies the socio-economic impact of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program which took place in Burundi at the end of the 1993-2009 civil conflict. The analysis suggests that reinsertion grants may favor the acceptation of ex-combatants in their host communities in the short run, but are certainly not sufficient for peace to hold. The two last chapters examine how misperceptions related to HIV/AIDS favor risky behavior. Starting from the observation that people largely overestimate the transmission rate per act of HIV, these two chapters assess the impact of this misconception on behavior. In particular, the third chapter shows that the overestimation of the HIV transmission rate may generate fatalism, and therefore sharply reduce the use of condoms. The last chapter shows that the overestimation of the HIV transmission rate may partly explain the low testing rates in Africa.(ECON 3) -- UCL, 201