5 Our sample covers 36 post-conflict countries for which the ending years of conflicts range from the 1960s to the 2000s. In order to identify periods of conflict along with the start and end dates of wars, we use the definition of civil war and the data presented in Sambanis (2004) and PRIO (2005).<sup>10</sup> The literature suggests that in the ten years following the end of conflicts, growth follows a fairly robust pattern. The capacity of these economies to absorb aid effectively also increases over the post-conflict cycle (Collier and Hoeffler 2002).<sup>11</sup> We closely follow the latter authors in defining three postconflict sub-periods, to which we add a pre-peace period (prior to the end of conflict) to allow for a more comprehensive comparison. Hence we define the conflict cycle as follows, where year 0 indicates the year when peace is attained:

- _PrePeace_ {yr(-4),.., yr (-1)}: covers the four years prior to the year of peace

- _PeaceOnset_ {yr(0), yr (1)}: covers the first two peaceful years, including the year when peace is attained

- _PostConf1_ {yr(2),.., yr (5)}: covers the following four peace years

- _PostConf2_ {yr(6),.., yr (9)}: covers the subsequent peace years.

Figure 1 summarizes aid flows during the post-conflict cycle for the median conflict country. Post-conflict countries receive larger aid with the start of peace. The median Official Development Aid (ODA) rises from 4% during _PrePeace_ to 5% in _PeaceOnset_ , with a relapse to 4% during _PostConf1_ and _PostConf2_ . The corresponding rise in percapita aid is about US$ 6 per capita per year between _PrePeace_ and the six years after peace ( _PeaceOnset_ and _PostConf1_ ).<sup>12</sup> Generally ODA tends to peak early, during the _PeaceOnset_ period. However, the quality of policies and institutions of conflict countries improves, at least modestly, with the start of peace. According to the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA), the corresponding quality indicator rises somewhat after peace for our median conflict country, suggesting an improved capacity to absorb aid.

Humanitarian or emergency aid tends to be more erratic, depending on the extent of country-specific emergency situations. Examples of large humanitarian receipts include the cases of Mozambique after the natural catastrophe in 2000 and Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, where humanitarian aid attained more than $0.15 per capita. For the median country in our sample, emergency aid grew exponentially in the post-conflict period, from $ 0.09-0.10 during _PrePeace_ and _PeaceOnset_ to $0.15 during _PostConf1_ and $ 0.41 during _PostConf2_ .

Collier and Hoeffler (2002) find that during _PeaceOnset_ the economy is likely to experience only a moderate rise in growth and the capacity for absorbing ODA is likely to be limited. In contrast, during _PostConf1_ and _PostConf2_ growth picks up and the capacity of aid absorption also grows. The peak of aid during _PeaceOnset_ and its

> 10 Appendix A presents a list of conflict countries with the date(s) when the conflict(s) ended. 11 See also Elbadawi (2006) for an analysis of the case of post-conflict Sudan. 12 By these estimates, a median country of 30 million people receive roughly US$180 m. per annum more in aid after peace than with what it received before the end of conflict.