The Long Run Impact of Bombing Vietnam / Edward Miguel, Gerard Roland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miguel, Edward.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Roland, Gerard.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w11954.

NBER working paper series no. w11954

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

We investigate the impact of U.S. bombing on later economic development in Vietnam. The Vietnam War featured the most intense bombing campaign in military history and had massive humanitarian costs. We use a unique U.S. military dataset containing bombing intensity at the district level (N=584). We compare the heavily bombed districts to other districts controlling for baseline demographic characteristics and district geographic factors, and use an instrumental variable approach exploiting distance to the 17th parallel demilitarized zone. U.S. bombing does not have a robust negative impact on poverty rates, consumption levels, infrastructure, literacy or population density through 2002. This finding suggests that local recovery from war damage can be rapid under certain conditions, although further work is needed to establish the generality of the finding in other settings.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2006.