The Impact of Armed Conflict on Economic Performance

Important gaps remain in the understanding of the economic consequences of civil war. Focusing on the conflict in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and using micro data, this article finds that households and localities that experienced more intense conflict are lagging behind in terms of consumption six years after the conflict, a finding that is robust to taking into account the endogeneity of violence. Significantly different returns to land and labor are observed between zones that experienced low- and high-intensity conflict which is consistent with the ongoing recovery. Distinguishing between civil war and genocide, the findings also provide evidence that these returns, and by implication the process of recovery, depend on the form of violence.

[1]  Nicholas Sambanis,et al.  How Much War Will we see? , 2002 .

[2]  Stathis N. Kalyvas,et al.  Order, Conflict, and Violence: Promises and pitfalls of an emerging research program: the microdynamics of civil war , 2008 .

[3]  K. Arrow The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing , 1962 .

[4]  Peter Wallensteen,et al.  Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset , 2002 .

[5]  J. Herbst,et al.  States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control , 2014 .

[6]  Marijke Verpoorten The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide: A Detailed Analysis for Gikongoro Province , 2005 .

[7]  I. Timaeus Estimation of mortality from orphanhood in adulthood. , 1991, Demography.

[8]  Marijke Verpoorten Measure for Measure: How Well Do We Measure Micro-Level Conflict Intensity? , 2011, Pediatric critical care medicine : a journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies.

[9]  Marc Schramm,et al.  The Strategic Bombing of German Cities During World War Ii and its Impact on City Growth , 2002, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[10]  Ian M. Timeeus Estimation of mortality from orphanhood in adulthood , 1991, Demography.

[11]  Valerie Cerra,et al.  Growth Dynamics: The Myth of Economic Recovery , 2005, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[12]  Edward Miguel,et al.  War and local collective action in Sierra Leone , 2009 .

[13]  J. Kugler,et al.  The Costs of Major Wars: The Phoenix Factor , 1977, American Political Science Review.

[14]  Christopher Blattman,et al.  The Consequences of Child Soldiering , 2010, The Review of Economics and Statistics.

[15]  T. C. Edens,et al.  Economic Growth , 1957, The Journal of Economic History.

[16]  Enrique Chaux Citizenship Competencies in the Midst of a Violent Political Conflict: The Colombian Educational Response , 2009 .

[17]  J. Chanaa,et al.  The state of the world's refugees: fifty years of humanitarian action. , 2000 .

[18]  S. Sumarto,et al.  Beyond the Overall Economic Downturn: Evidence on Sector-Specific Effects of Violent Conflict from Indonesia , 2011 .

[19]  Philip Verwimp,et al.  The Demographic and Socio-Economic Distribution of Excess Mortality During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda , 2009 .

[20]  L. Anselin Local Indicators of Spatial Association—LISA , 2010 .

[21]  C. Davenport The Weight of the Past: Exploring Lagged Determinants of Political Repression , 1996 .

[22]  Alok K. Bohara,et al.  Opportunity, Democracy, and the Exchange of Political Violence , 2006 .

[23]  D. Gupta,et al.  Income Distribution and Sociopolitical Instability as Determinants of Savings: A Cross-Sectional Model , 1986, Journal of Political Economy.

[24]  Edward Miguel,et al.  The Long Run Impact of Bombing Vietnam , 2006 .

[25]  J. Sachs,et al.  THE END OF POVERTY: Economic Possibilities for Our Time , 2005 .

[26]  Macartan Humphreys,et al.  Can Development Aid Contribute to Social Cohesion After Civil War , 2009 .

[27]  J. Fitzgerald,et al.  Where Did All the Growth Go , 1994 .

[28]  S. Bowles Warriors, Levelers, and the Role of Conflict in Human Social Evolution , 2012, Science.

[29]  S. Kalyvas,et al.  Did Marxism Make a Difference? Marxist Rebellions and National Liberation Movements , 2010 .

[30]  Ibrahim A. Elbadawi,et al.  How Much War Will We See ? Explaining the Prevalence of Civil War , 2002 .

[31]  Marijke Verpoorten,et al.  Household Coping in War- and Peacetime: Cattle Sales in Rwanda, 1991-2001 , 2007 .

[32]  E. Miguel,et al.  Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach , 2004, Journal of Political Economy.

[33]  Thomas E. Nelson,et al.  Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance , 1997, American Political Science Review.

[34]  C. Tilly Warmaking and Statemaking as Organized Crime , 1982 .

[35]  Patricia Justino,et al.  Poverty Dynamics, Violent Conflict, and Convergence in Rwanda , 2013 .

[36]  Irfan Nooruddin,et al.  Democracy under the Gun Understanding Postconflict Economic Recovery , 2009 .

[37]  L. Anselin Local Indicators of Spatial Association—LISA , 2010 .

[38]  Jan Henryk Pierskalla,et al.  Protest, Deterrence, and Escalation: The Strategic Calculus of Government Repression , 2010 .

[39]  L. Daqing,et al.  Advanced Macroeconomics I , 2009 .

[40]  D. Green,et al.  Deference, Dissent, and Dispute Resolution: An Experimental Intervention Using Mass Media to Change Norms and Behavior in Rwanda , 2009, American Political Science Review.

[41]  Peter E. Rossi,et al.  Plausibly Exogenous , 2008, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[42]  Philip Verwimp,et al.  Civil War, Crop Failure, and Child Stunting in Rwanda , 2007, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[43]  D. Weil,et al.  A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth Author ( s ) : , 2008 .

[44]  Gérard Prunier,et al.  The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide , 1998 .

[45]  D. Hibbs,et al.  Mass Political Violence: A Cross-National Causal Analysis , 1995 .

[46]  Jan Teorell,et al.  An Introduction to Special Issue , 2017 .

[47]  Marijke Verpoorten,et al.  Economic Mobility in Rural Rwanda: A Study of the Effects of War and Genocide at the Household Level , 2007 .

[48]  Olga N. Shemyakina The effect of armed conflict on accumulation of schooling: Results from Tajikistan , 2011 .

[49]  W. Moore,et al.  Whither Will They Go? A Global Study of Refugees’ Destinations, 1965–1995 , 2007 .

[50]  Allan Drazen,et al.  Threshold Externalities in Economic Development , 1990 .

[51]  National Cultures and Soccer Violence , 2008 .

[52]  Awori J. Hayanga The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time , 2010 .

[53]  S. Daly Organizational legacies of violence , 2012 .

[54]  Todd Sandler,et al.  Civil Wars and Economic Growth: Spatial Dispersion , 2004 .

[55]  P. Justino War and poverty , 2010 .

[56]  M. Humphreys Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War : Determinants of the Strategies of Warring Factions November 2005 , 2005 .

[57]  Detecting Hidden Violence: The Spatial Distribution of Excess Mortality in Rwanda , 2012 .

[58]  Athanasios Orphanides,et al.  The Macroeconomic Consequences of Terrorism , 2004, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[59]  Christopher J. Einolf The Fall and Rise of Torture: A Comparative and Historical Analysis* , 2007 .

[60]  E. Boserup The conditions of agricultural growth: The economics of agrarian change under population pressure , 1966 .

[61]  E. Sergenti,et al.  Economic growth and ethnic violence: An empirical investigation of Hindu—Muslim riots in India , 2010 .

[62]  R. Lucas On the Mechanics of Economic Development , 1988 .

[63]  Rubiana M. Chamarbagwala,et al.  The human capital consequences of civil war: Evidence from Guatemala , 2011 .

[64]  Gérard Prunier The Rwanda Crisis , 1995 .

[65]  Marijke Verpoorten The intensity of the Rwandan genocide: Fine measures from the gacaca records , 2012 .

[66]  Gérard Prunier The Rwanda crisis : history of a genocide , 1996 .

[67]  S. Loveridge,et al.  Exploring The Paradox Of Rwandan Agricultural Household Income And Nutritional Outcomes In 1990 And 2000 , 2005 .

[68]  John Hoddinott,et al.  Long-term consequences of early childhood malnutrition , 2006 .

[69]  R. Punamäki,et al.  Relationships between Traumatic Events, Children’s Gender, and Political Activity, and Perceptions of Parenting Styles , 1997 .

[70]  Philip Verwimp,et al.  Civil War, Crop Failure, and Child Stunting * , 2007 .

[71]  Susan C. Stokes,et al.  The Oxford handbook of comparative politics , 2007 .

[72]  Khusrav Gaibulloev,et al.  Growth Consequences of Terrorism in Western Europe , 2008 .

[73]  Nicholas Sambanis Do Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars Have the Same Causes? , 2001 .

[74]  Marijke Verpoorten Detecting Hidden Violence: The Spatial Distribution of Excess Mortality in Rwanda , 2010 .

[75]  E. Verheul,et al.  Poverty reduction strategy papers , 2001, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[76]  Michael P. Murray Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments , 2006 .

[77]  A. Alesina,et al.  Income Distribution, Political Instability, and Investment , 1993 .

[78]  Quentin Wodon,et al.  The Economic Impact of Armed Conflict in Rwanda , 2005 .

[79]  R. Cooper,et al.  The end of poverty: economic possibilities for our time. , 2008, European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe.

[80]  P. Collier,et al.  On economic causes of civil war , 1998 .

[81]  Robert J. Barro,et al.  Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries , 1991 .

[82]  J. Fearon,et al.  Democratic Institutions and Collective Action Capacity: Results from a Field Experiment in Post-Conflict Liberia , 2009 .

[83]  Macartan Humphreys,et al.  Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War , 2006, American Political Science Review.

[84]  Z. Iqbal,et al.  The Geo-Politics of Forced Migration in Africa, 1992—2001 , 2007 .

[85]  Markus Goldstein,et al.  Environmental and Gender Impacts of Land Tenure Regularization in Africa: Pilot Evidence from Rwanda , 2011 .

[86]  Alison Desforges,et al.  Leave None to Tell the Story Genocide in Rwanda , 1999 .

[87]  R. Lopez,et al.  Political Violence and Farm Household Efficiency in Colombia , 2007, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[88]  Cameron G. Thies War, Rivalry, and State Building in Latin America , 2005 .

[89]  Erwin H. Bulte,et al.  Violent conflict and behavior: A field experiment in Burundi , 2012 .

[90]  P. Justino On the Links Between Violent Conflict and Household Poverty: How Much do We Really Know? , 2007 .

[91]  J. Trussell,et al.  Further developments in indirect mortality estimation. , 1977, Population studies.

[92]  Philip Verwimp,et al.  Health and Civil War in Rural Burundi , 2008, The Journal of Human Resources.

[93]  G. Márquez Households in a Time of War : Instrumental Variables Evidence for Angola ∗ , 2009 .

[94]  P. Collier On the economic consequences of civil war , 1999 .

[95]  Siyan Chen,et al.  The Aftermath of Civil War , 2007 .

[96]  E. Miguel,et al.  War and institutions : New evidence from sierra leone , 2006 .

[97]  J. Munro Before and after the Black Death: money, prices, and wages in fourteenth-century England , 2004 .

[98]  Kati Schindler Who Does What in a Household after Genocide? Evidence from Rwanda , 2010 .

[99]  Edward N. Luttwak,et al.  Give War a Chance , 1999 .

[100]  Stuart Taylor,et al.  Civil wars. , 2003, Newsweek.

[101]  J. Platteau,et al.  Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap. , 1998, Journal of economic behavior & organization.

[102]  W. Easterly,et al.  Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions , 1997 .

[103]  D. de Walque,et al.  Armed Conflict and Schooling : Evidence from the 1994 Rwandan Genocide , 2008 .

[104]  D. Walque The long-term legacy of the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia , 2004 .

[105]  C. War,et al.  Civil War , 2002 .

[106]  Francisco Herreros,et al.  ‘The Full Weight of the State’: The Logic of Random State-Sanctioned Violence , 2006 .

[107]  Jeffrey M. Woodbridge Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data , 2002 .

[108]  C. Blattman From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda , 2009, American Political Science Review.

[109]  K. Gleditsch,et al.  Introduction to Special Issue on “Disaggregating Civil War” , 2009 .

[110]  K. Hill Estimating adult mortality levels from information on widowhood. , 1977, Population studies.

[111]  J. Kugler,et al.  Exploring the “Phoenix Factor” with the Collective Goods Perspective , 1989 .

[112]  Simeon Djankov,et al.  Poverty and Civil War: Revisiting the Evidence , 2008, The Review of Economics and Statistics.

[113]  M. Weber,et al.  Politics as a Vocation , 1919, Princeton Readings in Political Thought.

[114]  D. Rodrik Where Did All the Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conflict, and Growth Collapses , 1998 .