ture in these same areas; (ii) a larger number of schools per capita and better road density; and (iii) no differences in state presence such as hospitals, state buildings, and police stations.

Distrust of the state and elites could also explain the endurance of economic structures implemented during guerrilla control. Our results largely show that inside guerrilla-held territory, commercial plots that were historically owned by elites are smaller and have lower productivity today. Moreover, we find suggestive evidence that agro-based industry did not develop there. In particular, we find only a small share of individuals working in services and industry in former guerrilla areas relative to the control group. These results provide evidence that the subsistence agriculture implemented during guerrilla control continues to this day, potentially affecting long-term economic outcomes. Yet, there is no evidence that rebel-controlled areas altered income equality. Our focus group results suggest that regardless of whether large agricultural landowners would want to invest in former guerrilla areas today, residents there would be less willing to let them because they distrust such people as a result of their pre-War experience with agricultural elites.

We rule out alternative mechanisms. First, an increase in violence during and after the conflict does not explain our results. They hold when we exclude areas close to the rebel border, suggesting that violence at the border was not the main driver, and to using different bandwidths.<sup>7</sup> Furthermore, there was no increase in deaths, battles, and victims from 1980 to 1992 in guerrillacontrolled areas relative to nearby areas outside rebel control. Second, these results do not seem to stem from selective migration of individuals from guerrilla-controlled areas. Third, the results are not driven by differences in land tenure in former FMLN areas relative to nearby areas. Fourth, it is unlikely that the effects emerge from forced child recruitment into guerrilla groups. In fact, qualitative evidence suggests the Salvadoran Army extensively recruited children by force but the guerrillas did not.<sup>8</sup> Finally, we demonstrate that the results do not arise from differential patterns of public or private investment in the post-conflict period between treated and control areas. For example, we find no differences in the supply and quality of public education and road connectivity, and no changes in the number of businesses in former FMLN areas relative to nearby areas.

This paper has multiple policy implications. First, it offers evidence that the creation of alterna-

> 7We rule out other dynamics associated with a border, such as a higher incidence of landmines along the boundary, because El Salvador ran a very successful program that cleared all mines by 1994.

> 8It is estimated that of 60,000 Salvadoran Army combatants, about 48,000 (or 80 percent) were under 18 years of age, while only 2,000 of the 9,000 FMLN members were under 18 (or 20 percent) (Courtney, 2010). Moreover, a survey of child soldiers by UNICEF at the end of the war showed that while 91.7 percent of FMLN recruits had joined voluntarily, close to 53 percent of underage Salvadoran Army soldiers were forcibly recruited (Courtney, 2010).

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