Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/36961 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5028
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This study exploits district-level variation in the timing and intensity of civil war violence to investigate whether early-life exposure to civil wars affects labor-market outcomes later in life. In particular, we examine the impacts of armed conflict in Peru, a country that experienced the actions of a tenacious, brutally effective war machine, the Shining Path, between 1980 and 1995. This study finds that the most sensitive period to early-life exposure to civil war violence is the first 36 months of life. A one standard deviation increase in civil war exposure leads to a four percent fall in adult monthly earnings. Neither fetal, nor pre-school, periods significantly affect long-run earnings. Substantial heterogeneity in the earnings impacts emerge when considering variation in the types of civil war violence. Sexual violations disproportionally affected the wages of women, while torture and forced disappearances disproportionally affected the wages of men. Evidence on intervening pathways suggests that health rather than schooling is the most important channel in connecting early-life exposure to civil war and adult earnings.
Subjects: 
Civil war
earnings
measurement error
instrumental variable approach
Shining Path
JEL: 
I12
J13
O12
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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