The loss of human capital in Ukraine
by Noam Angrist, Simeon Djankov, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, and Simeon Djankov
April 22, 2022
Studies on war or civil conflicts can be used to gauge the human capital losses from the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Ichino and Winter-Ebmer (2004) find that Austrian and German children who were ten years old during WWII, or were involved in the war through their parents, received less education than comparable individuals from non-war countries such as Switzerland and Sweden. These individuals experienced a sizable earnings loss of between 3% and 4% a year some 40 years after the war, which can be attributed to the educational loss caused by the conflict. Using data on learning in the former Yugoslavia, Lai and Thyne (2007) and Eder (2014) argue that children born into or growing up in conflict become permanently less productive.