Event Detail

Watch Your Step: The Impact of Landmines in Rural Households During Conflict

Presented by:
Felipe Parra Escobar
Practice Job Talk
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Thursday, October 10, 2024
3:45 pm-5:00 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)

Antipersonnel landmines, though intended to target combatants, disproportionately impact civilians, disrupting economic activity and altering household decision-making processes. This paper examines how rural households in Colombia adjust their labor market decisions and healthcare-seeking behavior in response to recent and nearby landmine events, using detailed spatial data on landmine events combined with longitudinal household survey data. Our findings show that individuals engage less in risky labor activities following recent landmine events, but these responses are heavily influenced by liquidity constraints. Specifically, liquidity-unconstrained individuals are 28% less likely to work in occupations other than agricultural day labor, particularly in agriculture, and 12% less likely to spend time on agricultural tasks in their own fields. These households hire additional agricultural workers after landmine exposure, substituting external labor for their own. In contrast, liquidity-constrained individuals are 45% more likely to engage in agricultural day labor to compensate for income losses stemming from reduced non-agricultural employment. Moreover, landmine events deter both adults and children from seeking formal preventative medical care. This study highlights the differences in responses between liquidity-constrained and unconstrained individuals to shifts in perceived security during conflict.