Forced Displacement and Technology Adoption: an Empirical Analysis based on Agricultural Households in Bosnia and Herzegovina

We use the Bosnian Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) survey to show that conflict-induced displacement of agricultural households affects dramatically the adoption of new technologies in agriculture. We exploit the heterogeneity in the level of violence in the pre-war location to account for the selection bias. This natural experiment seems to be a source of exogenous variation in our case because violence aims to ethnic cleansing, without economic consideration. We find that displaced are less likely than stayers to adopt fertilizer and pesticide.