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The legacy effect of unexploded bombs on educational attainment in Laos

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  • Guo, Shiqi

Abstract

Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos. As the legacy of war, unexploded ordnance (UXO) contaminates a quarter of villages. This paper studies the long-term impact of UXO on education, exploiting the instrumental variable that originates from the geography of U.S. bombing campaigns in Laos. It finds that bombing not only interrupts the education of wartime cohorts, but also has strong and persistent negative impacts on the education of postwar cohorts through the legacy of UXO. Two decades after the U.S. bombing ended, school-age children with exposure to the average level of UXO contamination still had 1.3 fewer years of education. I rule out other mechanisms and show that with UXO in farmland, villagers farm more carefully and slowly. This reduction in farming efficiency demands more labor to sustain subsistence farming. In response, children drop out of school to supplement agricultural labor.

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  • Guo, Shiqi, 2020. "The legacy effect of unexploded bombs on educational attainment in Laos," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:147:y:2020:i:c:s0304387820301024
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102527
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    3. Lu, Wei & Yang, Po & Zheng, Shilin & Zhou, Sen, 2023. "Natural disasters and high-stakes exam performance: Evidence from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Thanh P. Bui & Katsushi S. Imai, 2024. "Are there any Long-lasting Human-Capital Effects from Exposure to the United States' Herbicide Bombings over Generations? Evidence from the Vietnam War," Discussion Paper Series DP2024-06, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    5. Hang Thu Nguyen-Phung & Hai Le, 2024. "Urbanization and Health Expenditure: An Empirical Investigation from Households in Vietnam," Economies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-17, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Conflict; Unexploded ordnance; Legacy effect; Education; Human capital; Laos;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • N35 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Asia including Middle East
    • N45 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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