Civil Conflict and Human Capital Accumulation: The Long-term Effects of Political Violence in Perú

This paper provides empirical evidence of the persistent effect of exposure to political violence on human capital accumulation. I exploit the variation in conflict location and birth cohorts to identify the longand short-term effects of the civil war on educational attainment. Conditional on being exposed to violence, the average person accumulates 0.31 less years of education as an adult. In the short-term, the effects are stronger than in the long-run; these results hold when comparing children within the same household. Further, exposure to violence during early childhood leads to permanent losses. I also explore the potential causal mechanisms.