Blood, education and economic Development: How the 19th century wars in Latin America Foiled its economic development

Jakob Madsen () and Miethy Zaman

World Development, 2025, vol. 192, issue C

Abstract: In this paper, we hypothesize that the prolonged wars in Latin America during most of the 19th century hindered human capital development and delayed economic progress well into the 20th century. Collecting novel data for the seven largest Latin American economies over the period 1820–2016, we show that the extraordinarily large share of military expenditure in total spending crowded out investment in education and R&D, which in turn had persistent effects on economic development.

Keywords: Military campaigns; Education; And economic development; Crowding out; State capacity; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 N54 O11 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:192:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25001354

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107050

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