Three essays on the impact of conflict and disease on household welfare in Sierra Leone

This thesis comprises three essays on the impact of conflict and disease on household welfare in Sierra Leone. In the first essay, we examine the impact of the Sierra Leone civil war on average household expenditure and poverty incidence using data from three rounds of household surveys. The key findings reveal that households located in areas subject to high conflict intensity and a protracted period of occupation by the rebel forces during the war experienced lower per capita expenditure levels and higher poverty rates post-conflict. The adverse welfare impact on households situated in the conflict-affected zones was found to persist almost a decade after the conflict’s conclusion. The second essay investigates the immediate and long-run impact of the Sierra Leone civil war on household inequality measured using selected household expenditure quantiles and the Gini coefficient. The findings reveal that households located in chiefdoms that experienced a protracted length of occupation by the rebel forces had lower per capita expenditure across the unconditional household welfare distribution, but much stronger negative effects were experienced by those households at the top end of the distribution. The conflict was found to reduce inequality in the short-run, with the effects still persisting 10 years after the war. The third essay addresses the impact of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone on household poverty (measured both objectively and subjectively), food insecurity, and household expenditure distribution and inequality. We explore two Ebola treatment measures (confirmed cases and quarantined chiefdoms) to investigate the effects of both the disease itself and the policy responses to it on household welfare. The empirical analysis reveals that the overall impact of the Ebola virus was to reduce household expenditure and increase poverty and food insecurity. The evidence suggests that the quarantine policy implemented rather than exposure to confirmed cases within chiefdoms exerted more significant adverse effects on household welfare.