Matt WamplerCEO & Co-Founder, ClearCOGS · CEO & Co-Founder, ClearCOGS 🔪

🐐 How Goat Prices Predict Conflict

11 Jun 2025 · 1 min

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In this brief talk, the speaker recounts a study presented by an assistant secretary working on global conflict resolution. The study built a statistical model that links sudden drops in goat (and sheep) prices to upcoming social disruption and population migration in regions where pastoral herding is a primary livelihood. The underlying mechanism is that herders, anticipating forced movement, liquidate part of their herd to obtain cash, causing market prices to fall. The speaker emphasizes that this price‑signal predictor works only in goat‑dependent economies, not in places like New Jersey, and highlights its potential as an early‑warning indicator for conflict‑related displacement.

Chapters

Wait, back, back up. Did you say goats? Goats, man. Goats. One of my favorite meetings was there was an assistant secretary who was working on conflict resolution around the world, and they developed a statistical model. And it turns out that in certain parts of the world, you can predict disruption, population migration, by a decline in the price of goats. Wait, back at it. Did you say goats? Goats, man, goats. Because people who have goats and sheep, when they know they're going to have to move, they try to liquidate some of their herd in order to get ready cash. So it's a predictor of something is going on in that part. It's not for everywhere. It's not for New Jersey, but it's for those parts of the world where goat herding is a main way of life.