Esteban Joan author Morelli Massimo author Columbia University. Political Science Rohner Dominic author Columbia University. Economics originator contributor text Working papers New York Department of Economics, Columbia University 2012 We provide a model of conflict and mass killing decisions, to identify the key variables and situations that make mass killings more likely to occur. We predict that mass killings are most likely in countries with large amounts of natural resources, institutional constraints regarding rent sharing, and low productivity of labor in other sectors. The role of resources like oil, gas and diamonds and other key determinants of mass killings is confirmed by our empirical results based on country level as well as ethnic group level analysis. Political science 1213-03 http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:15205 English NNC NNC 2012-11-07 10:50:50 -0500 2012-11-07 10:57:07 -0500 9207 eng