Ethnic Conflicts, Civil War, and Economic Growth: Region‐Level Evidence From Former Yugoslavia
研究了前南斯拉夫内战（1987-1995）对78个地区长期经济增长的影响，发现内战导致人均GDP损失约38%，且损失程度因地区而异。
ABSTRACT This paper studies the long‐term effects of the Yugoslav civil war (1987–1995) on subnational economic growth across 78 regions in five former Yugoslav republics from 1950 to 2015. We construct counterfactual growth trajectories using a robust region‐level donor pool from 32 conflict‐free countries. Applying a hybrid synthetic control and difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that the civil war inflicted significant regional per capita GDP losses estimated at 38 percent relative to the synthetic counterfactual, with substantial regional heterogeneity. The most war‐affected regions suffered prolonged and permanent economic declines, while north‐western regions and capital cities experienced more transitory effects. Population displacement, ethnic fractionalization and polarization, and economic geography help explain cross‐regional variation in GDP losses. Our results are robust to extensive variety of specification tests, placebo analyses, and falsification exercises.