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Abstract
How do regions recover from civil conflict? I study Peru’s internal armed conflict (1980-2000), which claimed approximately 69,000 lives, using district-level census data spanning 36 years with a pre-conflict baseline. Conflict districts did not simply return to their pre-war state: their populations are 2-3 years younger, with elderly shares 2-3 percentage points lower, the mark of persistent cohort displacement. Human capital converged substantially, with the literacy gap narrowing by 66%. Economic activity shows extensive-margin catch-up, with conflict districts now more likely to have detectable night-time luminosity. Dominant-perpetrator estimates differ substantially, though imprecisely and with a specification-dependent literacy pattern: Sendero Luminoso areas show pronounced demographic restructuring and weak educational recovery, while state-violence areas show no significant mean-age or migration shift, lower dependency ratios, and strong literacy gains, consistent with Sendero’s documented targeting of local authorities. Recovery is achievable, but the demographic transformation persists a generation later.
Keywords
Development Economics, Conflict Economics, Latin America, Peru