Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED)

"The ACLED dataset codes exact locations, dates, and additional characteristics of individual battle events in states affected with civil war. There is a specific focus on tracking rebel activity and distinguishing between territorial transfers of military control from governments to rebel groups and vice versa, and the location of rebel group bases, headquarters, strongholds and presence. The dataset also records one-sided violence on civilians by both government or rebel actors and conflicts between rebel groups." (Cited from the above website)

Countries included in the dataset are all countries in Africa and India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar. For other countries, the ACLED website provides the list of datasets (potentially) available.

The sample period starts from 1997.

Comparison to other cross-country conflict datasets can be found here.

Comparison to other conflict datasets for Nigeria and South Africa is available here.

Use in economics research

• Hariri and LaFerrara (2013) estimate the impact of weather shocks on conflict events in Africa.
• Rohner et al (2013) estimate the impact of conflicts on trust and ethnic identity in Uganda.
• Besley and Reynal-Querol (2014) estimate the impact of pre-colonial conflicts on post-colonial conflicts in Africa.
• Michalopoulos and Papaioanou (2015) estimate the impact of ethnic groups being partitioned by the national border on conflicts in Africa.
• The list of other research articles using the dataset can be found here.