Scars of War: The Legacy of World War I Deaths on British Communities

War generates great and persistent costs - both human and material - to the societies that are involved in it. This research aims to conduct a comprehensive study of the costs of the First World War (WW1) and its long-term consequences on British communities over the subsequent decades. Our choice to consider a historical setting is chiefly motivated by the fact that the War had a large, and in many respects exogenous effect on communities, which will allow us to provide credible causal estimates. In addition, we will have access to high-quality administrative and military data from war records and the Census, opening the way for us to study both short and long-term outcomes. Our research involves different projects, each tackling a different question in the economics of conflict. What ties the projects together is the development of a large-scale data infrastructure including individual data on citizens, soldiers and victims of WW1, coupled with data on patent registration and other measures of innovation.

Researchers

Luca Repetto (PI) (Ph.D. from CEMFI in 2015) is an Associate Senior Lecturer of Economics at Uppsala University and a Fellow at CESifo since September 2015.

Jan Bietenbeck (Ph.D. from CEMFI in 2015) is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lund University and is also affiliated with CESifo, DIW Berlin, and IZA.

Felipe Carozzi (Ph.D. from CEMFI in 2015) is Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics, and an affiliate of the CEP and CEPR.

Edward (Ted) Pinchbeck (Ph.D. from LSE in 2016) is a Birmingham Fellow at the Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.