Peace agreements: what happens next?

Abstract

We examine the immediate effects of peace agreements on violence using the data of the Upp sala Conflict Data Program. The sample contains 52 peace agreements that took place over 1989–2018. We exploit the discontinuity that peace deals generate when concluded and the variation coming from peace treaties happening in different countries at different time. Applying the event study analysis and the regression discontinuity design we find that peace agreements bring are duction in the number of fatalities already one month after the conclusion. Further, we study the heterogeneous effects that ceasefire and non-ceasefire agreements have on violence. This paper expands the existing literature by quantitatively analyzing the immediate effects of peace treaties and by providing evidence of heterogeneity in the impact of peace agreements.