We use experimental data from 35 randomly selected communities in Burundi to examine the impact of exposure to conflict on social-, risk- and time preferences. These types of preferences are important as they determine people’s propensity to invest and their ability to overcome social...

This paper challenges the idea that farmers revert to subsistence farming when confronted with violence from civil war. While there is an emerging macroeconomic consensus that wars are detrimental to development, we find contrasting microeconomic evidence. Using several rounds of (panel) data at...

Using a panel dataset from Burundi where information on protection payments during the 10 year civil war were collected, we test the relationship between payments, the nature of extraction by the rebels, and welfare outcomes. We ask, does payment to rebels insure against future welfare loss and...

This paper presents the results of a research project in which we have traced 350 Rwandan households who were part of a rural household survey before the Rwandan genocide (1994). Economic, demographic and agricultural data from an extensive 1989-1992 survey can be linked with the condition of...

Civil war and genocide in the 1990-2000 period in Rwanda - a small, landlocked, densely populated country in Central Africa - have had differential economic impacts on the country’s provinces. The reasons for this are the death toll of the genocide, the location of battles, the waves of...

This paper investigates the impact of the latest civil war and the subsequent economic embargo in Burundi on the health status of the Burundese children. We find that the civil war and the economic embargo had a particularly detrimental impact on the nutritional status of rural populations, due...

This paper applies the theory of social capital to the unfolding of genocide in a Rwandan community located 50 km south of the capital. Using the concepts defined by Putnam, Coleman and Woolcock, we find that the activities of political parties, civil war in the north of the country and the use...

Economic shocks at birth have lasting impacts on children’s health several years after the shock. We calculate height for age z-scores for children under age five using data from a Rwandan nationally representative household survey conducted in 1992. We exploit district and time variation in...

We analyse the effect of violence and rebellion on the evolution of household welfare. We collected new panel data for Burundi (1999-2007) in which we reinterviewed original as well as newly formed households (split-offs). We use several definitions of the household as unit of analysis and test...

Every year, thousands of refugees are forced to leave their countries of origin and are hosted by their neighboring countries. However, very little is known about the impact of these refugees on the local economy and its inhabitants. Based on a hypothesis formulated during a two-month iterative...