The World Bank Economic Review Advance Access originally published online on February 10, 2008
The World Bank Economic Review 2008 22(1):63-85; doi:10.1093/wber/lhn001
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The Aftermath of Civil War
Siyan Chen is a Master's student in computational finance at Carnegie Mellon University; her email address is siyanc{at}andrew.cmu.edu
Norman V. Loayza (corresponding author) is a lead economist at the World Bank;
Marta Reynal-Querol is Ramon y Cajal Research Fellow at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research (CESifo); her email address is marta.reynal{at}upf.edu
Correspondence: his email address is nloayza{at}worldbank.org
JEL code: O11
Using an event-study methodology, the article analyzes the aftermath of civil war in a cross-section of countries. It focuses on cases where the end of conflict marks the beginning of relatively lasting peace. The analysis considers 41 countries involved in internal wars over the period 1960–2003. To provide a comprehensive evaluation of the aftermath of war, a range of social areas is considered: basic indicators of economic performance, health and education, political development, demographic trends, and conflict and security issues. For each indicator the post- and pre-war situations are compared and their dynamic trends during the post-conflict period are examined. The analysis is conducted in both absolute terms and relative to control groups of countries that are similar except for conflict. The findings indicate that even though war has devastating effects and its aftermath can be immensely difficult, when the end of war marks the beginning of lasting peace, recovery and improvement are achieved.