Last Tuesday the Rei Jaume I Awards jury, featuring many Nobel Prize winners, recognized Marta Reynal-Querol, a professor of economics at Pompeu Fabra University, with the economics prize for her work on armed conflict and political economy and for studies on development grounded in historical experience and big data. The award highlighted her research approach and its impact on understanding how conflict interacts with economic change. Valencian José García Montalvo, whom she married in 2019, received the same honor, marking a moment of shared achievement and public celebration for the couple.
Can big data forecast the outcome of a war like the one in Ukraine, or are wars inherently unpredictable?
Big data is used to gather very detailed information, enabling researchers to measure risk factors and their evolution over time, such as wealth distribution and population dynamics. This approach allows for more precise definitions of outcomes in conflict studies. On a global scale, it is possible to estimate measures of economic inequality and intergroup disparities even in very small geographic areas. Yet even with these advances, predicting the exact onset of a conflict remains elusive. If one compares it to medicine, researchers can map profiles of regions most likely to experience a crisis, but they cannot specify the exact day, city, or body where the crisis will begin. Still, the belief is that continued progress in big data will eventually make what now seems impossible attainable.
And what about concerns if the war continues or widens?
The concern is real: a conflict that spreads could intensify and trigger grave consequences. War often extends beyond its initial frontiers, disrupting economies and societies in unintended ways. The potential ripple effects include heightened instability, greater humanitarian needs, and the risk of further escalation in neighboring regions.
Is a new recession on the horizon?
A recession remains a possibility. Inflation and disruptions to global production chains are deeply linked to the war in Ukraine. While central banks and governments try to respond, the proximate causes of inflation and supply chain disturbances persist, making a downturn a credible scenario for policymakers to monitor and address with caution.
One line of research examines how polarization within societies relates to the risk of social conflict. Is Spain at risk of internal strife due to polarization?
Societal polarization depends on many factors. High levels of ethnic, religious, or ideological division, especially when groups cluster regionally and hold divergent core values, raise concerns about social cohesion. In Spain, ideological differences exist across many areas, but the daily concerns that most people share—work, family health, and a decent education for children—constitute powerful stabilizing anchors. When those shared pillars start to erode for a large portion of society, polarization tends to intensify. In Spain, the core values that unite people have historically held strong, and the potential for conflict grows only if those foundational pillars weaken significantly for a broad segment of the population.
Another aspect of their methodology uses satellite imagery to measure inequality. What do those images reveal?
Satellite data, especially nighttime light measurements, serve as a tool to gauge regional development levels. They offer several advantages for assessing poverty and inequality: they provide objective signals, they can be consistently defined across countries, and they avoid some biases associated with official statistics. In some authoritarian contexts, poverty indicators reported by governments may diverge from what satellite observations suggest. The light visible from space thus helps researchers compare conditions across nations and over time with a common metric.
Unchecked inequality stands as a major threat to social peace. Could its momentum, alongside inflation and the Ukrainian conflict, accelerate global disruption?
The Ukraine crisis is likely to influence inequality in meaningful ways. Inflation tends to hit the lower-income groups hardest, given their higher share of essential expenditures such as energy and food. Government measures to ease fuel costs may cushion the impact, but wage growth must keep pace with living costs to maintain purchasing power. The most important insight is that rising prices for energy and basic commodities pose the greatest danger to social harmony. When those prices spike rapidly, public trust can fray and social cohesion may falter. In this context, the policy mix and market responses will determine how much inequality deepens and how swiftly it translates into broader tensions.