Recovery from conflict: lessons of success

Hannes Mueller, Lavinia Piemontese and Augustin Tapsoba

No 7970, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper studies long-term impacts of violent conflict, to provide insights into the costs of conflict and policies to prevent conflict relapse. The findings link evidence on the contemporaneous effects of conflict with its persistent impact, especially by combining multiple data sources such as night lights, indicators of political exclusion, and nutrition. There is a strong level effect on output arising from the intensity of conflict, which, contrary to perceptions of post-conflict booms, on average is not reversed by subsequent more rapid growth. The paper investigates two possible channels that make conflict persistent: refugee flows and investment. Both channels display wide variation across recovery episodes, and are capable of large surges, which can in some cases generate rapid recoveries. Where recoveries lack buoyancy --which is the case for many post-conflict episodes -- deeper political constraints appear to be at work, which may ultimately relate to the effectiveness of power sharing. Finally, to highlight the need for more effective policies and knowledge in this area, the paper shows that the human development costs of conflict are huge, and can persist through a full generation. Policy recommendations and pointers for future research form the conclusion.

Keywords: Social Cohesion; Conflict and Fragile States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-02-14
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/832901487083457988/pdf/WPS7970.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7970

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi (ryazigi@worldbank.org).