Professor Tilman Brück is Team Leader, Development Economics, IGZ in Großbeeren near Berlin and the Founder and Director of ISDC – International Security and Development Center in Berlin. He is also Research Affiliate of the Institute for Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon and Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Professor Brück is the co-founder and co-director of the “Households in Conflict Network (HiCN)”.

His research interests focus on the economics of household behavior and well-being in conflict-affected and fragile economies, including the measurement of violence and conflict in household surveys and the impact evaluation of programs in conflict-affected areas. He has published over thirty articles in peer-reviewed journals (including Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Comparative Economics, European Journal of Political Economy, and World Development) and edited over a dozen books and special issues of journals on the economics of conflict and insecurity. Professor Brück has led as a principal investigator several impact evaluations in conflict-affected and fragile states.

Professor Brück was previously Director of SIPRI, Professor of Development Economics at Humboldt-University of Berlin, and Head of the Department of Development and Security at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). He has also worked as a consultant for the BMZ, European Commission, DFID, GIZ, ILO, KfW, OECD, UNDP, USAID and the World Bank. Tilman Brück studied economics at Glasgow University and Oxford University and obtained his doctorate in economics from Oxford University.

Research Interests

Development economics, including the empirical analysis of poverty and employment. Economics of security, conflict, reconstruction and terrorism. Measurement of conflict in household surveys. Impact evaluations in conflict-affected areas.

HiCN Working Papers Series

420

Shocking social safety: Evidence from violence and drought in North-east Nigeria

Wolfgang Stojetz,  Piero Ronzani,  Tilman Brück,  Jeanne Pinay, Marco d'Errico

Polycrises created by violent conflict and climate change are ubiquitous. Yet, the impacts of conflict and climatic shocks on human behavior and welfare have largely […]

419

Building Resilience in Conflict Areas: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Borno State in North-east Nigeria

Wolfgang Stojetz,  Piero Ronzani,  Tilman Brück,  Jeanne Pinay, Marco d'Errico

This paper provides novel evidence on the impacts of agricultural support programs in acute emergency settings, by studying resilience in mostly rural areas in the […]

414

The impacts of armed conflict on human development: a review of the literature

Paola Vesco,  Ghassan Baliki,  Tilman Brück,  Debarati Guha-Sapir,  Jonathan Hall,  Stefan Döring, Anneli Eriksson, Hanne Fjelde, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Maxine R. Leis, Hannes Mueller, Christopher Rauh, Ida Rudolfsen, Ashok Swain, Alexa Timlick, Phaidon T. B. Vassiliou, Johan von Schreeb, Nina von Uexkull, Håvard Hegre

The detrimental impacts of wars on human development are well documented across research domains, from public health to micro-economics. However, these impacts are studied in […]

410

Prevalence of Depression and Associated Socio-economic Outcomes during Violent Conflict: A Matched Analysis for Palestine Using Nationally Representative Survey and Conflict Event Data

Piero Ronzani,  Wolfgang Stojetz,  Alia Aghajanian,  Tilman Brück,  Nadine Stammel, Maria Boettche, Diego Zardetto, Sarah Fenzl, Maen Salhab, Jessica M. Anderson, Arden Finn

Mental health risks are high in conflict settings, but mental health research mostly focuses on non-conflict settings. Survey data from active conflict settings often suffer […]

409

Armed conflict and gendered participation in agrifood systems: Survey evidence from 29 African countries

Piero Ronzani,  Wolfgang Stojetz,  Tilman Brück,  Carlo Azzarri, Gianluigi Nico, Erdgin Mane

This paper provides empirical microlevel evidence on the gendered impacts of armed conflict on economic activity in agriculture and other sectors, combining large-N sex-disaggregated survey […]

389

Exposure to collective gender-based violence causes intimate partner violence

Wolfgang Stojetz,  Tilman Brück, 

Globally, one in three women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) over their lifetimes. Yet, the factors that cause men to commit IPV remain poorly understood. […]

388

Coping with Compounding Challenges in Conflict Crises: Evidence from North-east Nigeria

Wolfgang Stojetz,  Tilman Brück, 

This paper analyzes how the intersectionality of gender, forced displacement, and collective violence shapes coping behaviors in conflict crises, paying particular attention to household composition […]

387

How to conduct impact evaluations in humanitarian and conflict settings

Aysegül Kayaoglu,  Ghassan Baliki,  Dorothee Weiffen,  Tilman Brück,  Melodie Al Daccache, 

Methodological, ethical and practical challenges make it difficult to use experimental and rigorous quasi-experimental approaches to conduct impact evaluations in humanitarian emergencies and conflict settings […]

386

Conducting (Long-term) Impact Evaluations in Humanitarian and Conflict Settings: Evidence from a complex agricultural intervention in Syria

Aysegül Kayaoglu,  Ghassan Baliki,  Tilman Brück, 

The number of vulnerable people in humanitarian emergencies worldwide is increasing due to the rising frequency and intensity of risk exposure. At the same time, […]

384

State-Based Conflict and Entrepreneurship – Empirical Evidence

Wim A. Naudé,  Tilman Brück,  Ernesto Armorós

This paper investigates the relationship between state-based conflict and entrepreneurship. From a survey of the existing literature, we formulate two hypotheses: (1) state-based conflict has […]

381

Violent conflict moderates food security impacts of agricultural asset transfers in Syria: A heterogeneity analysis using machine learning

Dorothee Weiffen,  Ghassan Baliki,  Tilman Brück, 

Agricultural interventions are one of the key policy tools to strengthen the food security of households living in conflict settings. Yet, given the complex nature […]

356

The Double Burden of Female Protracted Displacement: Survey Evidence on Gendered Livelihoods in El Fasher, Darfur

Wolfgang Stojetz,  Tilman Brück, 

During protracted displacement, women and girls often face serious gender-specific challenges and vulnerabilities, including adverse norms and institutional barriers. Yet, quantitative evidence on gendered drivers […]

297

Can Jobs Programs Build Peace?

Tilman Brück,  Neil Ferguson,  Wolfgang Stojetz,  Valeria Izzi

In the last decade, well over $10bn has been spent on interventions that aim to build peace and social stability through employment. Despite this degree […]

280

The Microeconomics of Violent Conflict

Philip Verwimp,  Patricia Justino,  Tilman Brück, 

In our brief review, we take stock of the emergence, in the last decade, of the “microeconomics of violent conflict” as a new subfield of […]

277

Determinants and Dynamics of Forced Migration to Europe: Evidence from a 3-D Model of Flows and Stocks

Tilman Brück,  Neil Ferguson,  Eleonora Nillesen,  Kai M. Dunker Aline Meysonnat

Abstract: Violent conflict is a well-recogniseddriver of forced migration but literature does not usually consider the pull factors that might also cause irregular movements. In […]

275

Assets for Alimentation? The Nutritional Impact of Assets-Based Programming in Niger

Tilman Brück,  Neil Ferguson,  Oscar Mauricio Díaz Botía J. Ouédraogoc Z. Ziegelhöfer

A recent strand of aid programming aims to develop household assets by removing the stresses associated with meeting basic nutritional needs. In this paper, we […]

269

The effects of violent conflict on household resilience and food security: Evidence from the 2014 Gaza conflict

Tilman Brück,  Marco d’Errico Rebecca Pietrelli

This paper studies how conflict affects household resilience capacity and food security, drawing on panel data collected from households in Palestine before and after the […]

260

Micro-Foundations of Fragility: Concepts, Measurement and Application

Ghassan Baliki,  Tilman Brück,  Neil Ferguson,  Sindu W. Kebede

We explore the micro-foundations of fragility by discussing how to measure the exposure to fragility at the individual level. We focus on two notions that […]

199

The Global Economic Burden of Violent Conflict

Carlos Bozzoli,  Tilman Brück,  Olaf J. de Groot

Calculating the impact of different societal challenges, such as climate change, HIV/AIDS or cancer, uncovers the scale, distribution and structure of their economic burdens. Since […]

193

Can Rigorous Impact Evaluations Improve Humanitarian Assistance?

Yashodhan Ghorpade,  Tilman Brück,  Jyotsna Puri Anastasia Aladysheva Vegard Iversen

Abstract: Despite the widespread occurrence of humanitarian emergencies such as epidemics, earthquakes, droughts, floods and violent conflict and despite the significant financial resources devoted to […]

188

The Perception of Lethal Risks – Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Tilman Brück,  Manuel Schubert

We run a novel experiment to explore the relationship between the perception of real-life risks and the demand for risk reduction. Subjects play a series […]

185

Learning the hard way: The effect of violent conflict on student academic achievement

Tilman Brück,  Michele Di Maio,  Sami Miaari, 

We study the effect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the probability to pass the final high-school exam for Palestinian students in the West Bank during […]

177

Money Can’t Buy Love but Can it Buy Peace? Evidence from the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation

Tilman Brück,  Neil Ferguson, 

In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement concluded a period of violence in Northern Ireland yet the scars of the conflict remained prevalent in the political […]

153

Measuring Conflict Exposure in Micro-Level Surveys

Tilman Brück,  Patricia Justino,  Philip Verwimp,  Andrew Tedesco Alexandra Avdeenko

Violent conflict is a key obstacle to overall economic development and specifically to human development. Conflicts vary greatly in their nature – hence the impacts of conflicts […]

142

Evaluating programmes in conflict-affected areas

Carlos Bozzoli,  Tilman Brück,  Nina Wald, 

We provide an overview over the concepts, pitfalls and challenges involved in conducting scientifically sound impact evaluations and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in conflict-affected and […]

138

Micro-level dynamics of conflict, violence and development: A new analytical framework

Patricia Justino,  Tilman Brück,  Philip Verwimp, 

Violent conflict is arguably one of the most important challenges facing the world today. The incidence of international and civil wars has decreased in recent […]

102

The Effects of Conflict on Fertility in Rwanda

Kati Schindler,  Tilman Brück, 

The aim of this paper is to study the short and long-term fertility effects of mass violent conflict on different population sub-groups. The authors pool […]

098

Activity Choices of Internally Displaced Persons and Returnees: Quantitative Survey Evidence from Post-War Northern Uganda

Carlos Bozzoli,  Tilman Brück,  Tony Muhumuza, 

We study the effect of living in an internally displaced people’s (IDP) camp oneconomic activity choices in post war northern Uganda. As the decision to […]

088

Conflict Experiences and Expectations on Recovery: Survey Evidence from Northern Uganda

Carlos Bozzoli,  Tilman Brück,  Tony Muhumuza, 

We analyse the role of mass violent conflict in influencing individual expectations. We hypothesise that individuals are likely to report negative expectations if they were […]

087

Perceptions, Expectations, and Entrepreneurship: The Role of Extreme Events

Tilman Brück,  Fernanda Llussá José Tavares

We provide, for the first time, comparative evidence of the impact of various types of extreme events – natural disasters, terrorism, and violent conflicts – […]

082

Self-Employment and Conflict in Colombia

Carlos Bozzoli,  Tilman Brück,  Nina Wald, 

Many Colombians are confronted with the ongoing conflict which influences their decision making in everyday life, including their behaviour on labour markets. This study focuses […]

079

Identifying Conflict and Violence in Micro-Level Surveys

Tilman Brück,  Patricia Justino,  Philip Verwimp,  Alexandra Avdeenko

The overall goal of the report is to increase the capacity of researchers and policy makers to identify comparatively, and across time, how individuals, households […]

077

Violent Conflict and Inequality

Tilman Brück,  Cagatay Bircan Marc Vothknecht

This paper analyzes the distributive impacts of violent conflicts, which is in contrast to previous literature that has focused on the other direction. We use […]

006

An Economic Analysis of Security Policies

Tilman Brück, 

This paper analyses public policy choices in the security economy from an economic perspective. It discusses the role of public goods for national and global […]

004

The Welfare Effects of Farm Household Activity Choices in Post-War Mozambique

Tilman Brück, 

This paper analyses the effects of activity choices on farm household income and consumption in a war-affected developing country. The study uses household survey data […]

003

The Economic Consequences of Terror: A Brief Survey

Tilman Brück,  Bengt-Arne Wickström

This brief survey reviews the economic consequences of terrorism. It is argued that the indirect effects of terrorism are likely to outweigh the direct effects. […]

002

Coping Strategies in Post-War Rural Mozambique

Tilman Brück, 

This paper analyses post-war coping strategies by farm households in developing countries. The analysis is based on a portfolio model of activity choices in war-affected […]

001

Investment in Land, Tenure Security and Area Farmed in Northern Mozambique

Tilman Brück, 

Abstract: The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines […]