Jaakko Meriläinen

This chapter examines the historical link between conflict and post-conflict economic inequality. We begin by surveying the broader economic history literature and summarize and analyze the impacts of both internal and external conflicts on subsequent inequality in several contexts. We then provide an empirical exploration of the connections between exposure to internal and external conflict and local economic inequality in Finland, focusing on changes in inequality after the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and the Second World War. Data show that inequality decreased after both wars. However, a higher local conflict exposure is associated with a larger reduction in local inequality in the case of the Finnish Civil War but not in the case of WWII. We discuss the implications of our results in the broader context of violent conflict and inequality.