Identifying the impact of exposure to armed conflict on individual preferences and field behavior: Evidence from Turkish draft Veterans

Building on a population-level natural experiment, this study identifies the causal impact of exposure to armed conflict in a combatant role on risk, ambiguity and time preferences and related field behaviors for the average adult male randomly picked from the target population. Our setting allows us to analyze the difference in preferences without confoundment by community-level effects of conflict. Those exposed exhibit higher risk tolerance, ambiguity neutrality, patience and time consistency. We also find exposure leads to an increase in entrepreneurial activity but has no significant effect on risky health behaviors, and that elevated agency partially accounts for these shifts. Taken together, these patterns indicate that combat exposure alters preferences in ways that are not inherently positive or negative for economic welfare; what matters is how such preferences are expressed. Our results suggest agency as one potential channel through which exposure shapes this expression, making it more constructive than maladaptive in this setting.