Citation: Justino, P.; Leone, M. and Salardi, P. (2014) Short-and Long-Term Impact of Violence on Education: The Case of Timor Leste, The World Bank Economic Review 28.2: 320-353 Official URL: http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/2/320.abstract More details/abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of the wave of violence that occurred in Timor Leste in 1999 on education outcomes. We examine the short-term impact of the violence on school attendance in 2001 and its longer-term impact on primary school completion of the same cohorts of children observed again in 2007. We compare the educational impact of the 1999 violence with the impact of other periods of high-intensity violence during the 25 years of Indonesian occupation. The short-term effects of the conflict are mixed. In the longer term, we find evidence of a substantial loss of human capital among boys in Timor Leste who were exposed to peaks of violence during the 25-year long conflict. The evidence suggests that this result may be due to household trade offs between education and economic welfare.

The Conflict, Violence and Development Research Cluster is part of the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team at the Institute of Development Studies. The Cluster's main focus is to develop new insights into how people in contexts of conflict and violence live and interact, and what institutions help (or hinder) them. We aim to use our research findings to inform, identify and develop policies and practices that will strengthen people's own efforts to survive and make a living. Email: conflict@ids.ac.uk Web: www.ids.ac.uk/go/research-teams/vulnerability-and-poverty-reduction-team/researchthemes/conflict CVD WP6 This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee for teaching or nonprofit purposes, but not for resale. Formal permission is required for all such uses, but normally will be granted immediately. For copying in any other circumstances, or for reuse in other publications, or for translation or adaptation, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher and a fee may be payable. SummaryThis paper discusses how endogenous mechanisms linking processes of violent conflict and the economic well-being of individuals and households in combat areas provide valuable micro foundations to the ongoing debate on the causes and duration of armed conflict. Notably, the endogenous relationship between conflict processes and household economic status leads to the emergence of symbiotic associations between armed groups and households living in areas they control that affect substantially the probability of a conflict starting and its effectiveness thereafter. Households in conflict areas draw on local armed groups to protect their economic status when anticipating violence and during the conflict, while armed groups make use of different levels of (either reluctant or voluntary) participation, support and cooperation from local populations to advance their strategic objectives at the onset and throughout the conflict. The level of household participation at the start and during the conflict is a function of two interdependent variables, namely household vulnerability to poverty and household vulnerability to violence. The poorer the household is at the start of the conflict, the higher is the probability of the household participating and supporting an armed group. The higher the risk of violence, the higher is the probability of the household participating and supporting armed groups. The interaction between these two variables varies with the conflict itself and is defined by the direct and indirect effects of conflict-induced violence on the economic behaviour and decisions of households in combat areas.Keywords: household poverty; household welfare; causes of armed conflict; duration of conflict; micro-foundations of conflict.Patricia Justino is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, specialising in applied microeconomics. Her current research work focuses on the impact of violence and conflict on household welfare, the microfoundations of violent confli...

This article reflects on the importance of linking micro and macro levels of analysis in order to advance our current understanding of civil wars and political violence processes and discusses the contributions of the articles in this special issue. We first identify the main problems in research on political violence that is focused on a single level of analysis and describe the challenges faced by research that attempts to establish connections between different levels. We then introduce the different articles in the special issue, with an emphasis on the micro-macro-level linkages they develop and highlighting their commonalities. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of a new research agenda for the study of civil wars and political violence that bridges social, economic, and political dynamics occurring at the local level and conflict processes taking place in the macro arena.

The Conflict, Violence and Development Research Cluster is part of the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team at the Institute of Development Studies. The Cluster's main focus is to develop new insights into how people in contexts of conflict and violence live and interact, and what institutions help (or hinder) them. We aim to use our research findings to inform, identify and develop policies and practices that will strengthen people's own efforts to survive and make a living. Email: conflict@ids.ac.uk Web: www.ids.ac.uk/go/research-teams/vulnerability-and-poverty-reduction-team/researchthemes/conflict CVD WP6 This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee for teaching or nonprofit purposes, but not for resale. Formal permission is required for all such uses, but normally will be granted immediately. For copying in any other circumstances, or for reuse in other publications, or for translation or adaptation, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher and a fee may be payable. SummaryThis paper discusses how endogenous mechanisms linking processes of violent conflict and the economic well-being of individuals and households in combat areas provide valuable micro foundations to the ongoing debate on the causes and duration of armed conflict. Notably, the endogenous relationship between conflict processes and household economic status leads to the emergence of symbiotic associations between armed groups and households living in areas they control that affect substantially the probability of a conflict starting and its effectiveness thereafter. Households in conflict areas draw on local armed groups to protect their economic status when anticipating violence and during the conflict, while armed groups make use of different levels of (either reluctant or voluntary) participation, support and cooperation from local populations to advance their strategic objectives at the onset and throughout the conflict. The level of household participation at the start and during the conflict is a function of two interdependent variables, namely household vulnerability to poverty and household vulnerability to violence. The poorer the household is at the start of the conflict, the higher is the probability of the household participating and supporting an armed group. The higher the risk of violence, the higher is the probability of the household participating and supporting armed groups. The interaction between these two variables varies with the conflict itself and is defined by the direct and indirect effects of conflict-induced violence on the economic behaviour and decisions of households in combat areas.Keywords: household poverty; household welfare; causes of armed conflict; duration of conflict; micro-foundations of conflict.Patricia Justino is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, specialising in applied microeconomics. Her current research work focuses on the impact of violence and conflict on household welfare, the microfoundations of violent confli...

This paper analyzes the poverty impact of the violent events that affected Rwanda in the 1990s. The main objective of the paper is to identify systematically potential mechanisms linking violent conflict with changes in poverty across provinces and households in Rwanda before and after a decade of violence. In accordance with emerging literature on the long-term economic effects of violent conflict, we find empirical evidence for economic convergence between richer and poorer Rwandan provinces and households following the conflict shocks. Using a small but unique panel of households surveyed before and after the conflict period, we find that households whose house was destroyed or who lost land ran a higher risk of falling into poverty. We do not find much evidence for an economic effect of violent deaths at the household level due to substitution effects of labor within the household. Nonviolent deaths however seem to increase income per adult equivalent for the survivors. Results are shown to be robust to sample selection and IV models.JEL Codes: I32, O12, O55