Good Intentions Gone Bad? The Dodd-Frank Act and Conflict in Africa's Great Lakes Region

The Dodd-Frank Act imposes reporting requirements on US companies regarding supply chain links to conflict minerals. Previous research uses within-Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) variation in the location of mineral mines to identify the act's effect on conflict. Due to the presence of spillovers, these previous studies may underestimate the effect. Moreover, the act regulates reporting on minerals mined in the DRC and all surrounding countries. To fully evaluate this legislation, I estimate the effect on the prevalence of conflict events in the DRC and all covered countries. Difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the unintended consequences of this legislation within the DRC are larger than previously reported and that there is no evidence of any effect within all covered countries pooled together. Supplemental analyses (i) investigate possible mechanisms that drive these results and (ii) find that suspending enforcement of the legislation is unlikely to reduce conflict in the DRC.