A proper mannequin of biases in battle knowledge –

Throughout violent conflicts, governments might acknowledge their use of illegitimate violence (e.g. non-combatant victims), though such violence might suppress civilian assist. Why would they do this? We mannequin the strategic incentives that affect authorities disclosures of illegitimate violence in mild of potential NGO investigations the place disclosures, investigations, and assist are endogenous. We spotlight implications for the evaluation of battle knowledge generated from authorities and NGO studies and for the emergence of presidency transparency. Underreporting bias in public disclosures correlates positively with underreporting bias in NGO studies. Moreover, governments exhibit larger underreporting bias relative to NGOs when NGOs face greater investigative prices. We additionally illustrate why it’s troublesome to estimate destructive results of illegitimate violence on assist utilizing authorities knowledge: with giant true results, governments have incentives to cover such violence, resulting in strategic mitigation bias. Lastly, there’s a U-shaped relationship between NGO analysis prices and public disbursements.