This study investigates the long-term causal effects of U.S. bombing missions during the Vietnam War on later economic development in Laos. Following an instrumental variables approach, we use the distance between the centroid of village-level administrative boundaries and heavily bombed targets, namely, the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos and Xieng Khouang Province in northern Laos, as an instrument for the intensity of U.S. bombing missions. We use three datasets of mean nighttime light intensity (1992, 2005, and 2013) and two datasets of population density (1990 and 2005) as outcome variables. The estimation results show no robust long-term effects of U.S. bombing missions on economic development in southern Laos but show negative effects in northern Laos, even 40 years after the war. We also found that the results do not necessarily support the conditional convergence hypothesis within a given country, although this result could be unique to Laos.

这项研究调查了越南战争期间美国轰炸任务对老挝后来的经济发展的长期因果关系。遵循工具变量方法，我们使用村级行政边界的质心与轰炸目标之间的距离，即老挝南部的胡志明小径和老挝北部的Xieng Khouang省，作为衡量美国强度的工具轰炸任务。我们使用三个平均夜间光强度数据集（1992、2005和2013）和两个人口密度数据集（1990和2005）作为结果变量。估计结果表明，美国的轰炸任务对老挝南部的经济发展没有长期稳定的影响，但即使在战后40年，也显示出老挝北部的负面影响。