RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Health and Civil War in Rural Burundi
JF Journal of Human Resources
JO J Hum Resour
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 536
OP 563
DO 10.3368/jhr.44.2.536
VO 44
IS 2
A1 Tom Bundervoet
A1 Philip Verwimp
A1 Richard Akresh
YR 2009
UL http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/44/2/536.abstract
AB We combine household survey data with event data on the timing and location of armed conflicts to examine the impact of Burundi’s civil war on children’s health status. The identification strategy exploits exogenous variation in the war’s timing across provinces and the exposure of children’s birth cohorts to the fighting. After controlling for province of residence, birth cohort, individual and household characteristics, and province-specific time trends, we find an additional month of war exposure decreases children’s height for age z-scores by 0.047 standard deviations compared to nonexposed children. The effect is robust to specifications exploiting alternative sources of exogenous variation.