Not gone with the wind: Long-run impact of herbicidal warfare in Vietnam
Abstract
We investigate the legacies of herbicidal warfare on population size and growth in Vietnam in 2001-2020. The identification strategy exploits the flight-level military records and the plausibly exogenous hamlet-level variation in herbicide exposure around the spray-on, direction-change, and spray-off points of fixed-wing aircraft missions, combined with a fuzzy regression kink design. The elasticity estimate suggests that a 10% increase in herbicide exposure during the Vietnam War is associated with a decrease in population size of 1.57-1.93% in 2001 and 2.42-2.8% in 2020. We also find negative associations between herbicide exposure and overall and annual population growth rates.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Agricultural risk and resilience
Weed Control and Herbicide Applications
Agricultural Innovations and Practices
Publication details
- Journal / source
- World Development
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Volume
- 206
- Pages
- 107467–107467
- Publication date
- 28 May 2026
- Language
- EN