Standard economic risk theory postulates that in the absence of credit markets, wealthier households will engage in higher-risk, higher profit activities to generate income while poor households will specialize in low-risk activities with low returns. The rationale is that wealthier households...

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...

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...

To examine the impact of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide on children’s schooling, the authors combine two cross-sectional household surveys collected before and after the genocide. The identification strategy uses pre-war data to control for an age group’s baseline schooling and exploits variation...

In an ethnically polarized country, does aversion towards inter-ethnic inequity induce citizens to vote for a party promoting an equitable allocation of national resources among ethnic groups? We base our analysis on a survey that we conducted among 331 students from Addis Ababa University. We...

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...

In this paper we estimate the causal effects of civil war on years of education in the context of a school-going age cohort who are exposed to armed conflict in Cote d’Ivoire. Using year and department of birth to identify an individual’s exposure to war, the difference-in-difference...

We analyse the effect of civil war on household welfare. Using Burundian panel data for the 1998-2007 period in which we re-interviewed original as well as newly formed households (split-offs), we show that headcount poverty decreased by 3.5 % points when split-off households are taken into...

We use a new dataset from Burundi to analyze the role of local institutions as determinants of income, distinguishing between three distinct dimensions of the institutional framework: (i) property rights security, (ii) local political leadership and (iii) social capital. Using measures of...