A Note on Targeting by Predatory Leaders: Evidence from Rural Liberia

Abstract

We consider the impact of rice-thieving chiefs on investments by smallholder farmers in Liberia. In an earlier study, we found that chiefs who steal reduce aggregate investment levels by villagers. In this paper, we refine this result, and establish that predatory leadership only matters for households with a different ethnic identity from the chief. Co-ethnics of the chief are much less responsive to a context of predation, suggesting that thieving leaders target individuals along ethnic lines.