Human capital investment in post-conflict in Colombia

Research on the micro-level effects of violence shows that indivduals living in conflict-affected areas considerably reduce their investment in education in the long run. However, little is known about how individuals respond to the end of conflict in the short-run. We aim to fill this gap by studying the case of Colombia, where after 50 years of internal civil war, the government declared a bilateral ceasefire with the FARC guerrilla that drastically decreased conflict in previously affected areas. We will examine how school enrollment and dropout change in the process of transition into peace after the ceasefire. To do that, we plan to construct a rich dataset with information on conflict exposure and educational outcomes. We will estimate a difference-in-differences model that compares changes in the educational outcomes before and after the ceasefire among the other areas. We will complement the analisys by studying the effects on teachers quality and infrastructure investments. The results from this project are crucial to inform how peace-building processes can affect education in highly affected areas, and will shed some lights on the relevance of education policies during post conflict.