Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation

Alvaro Calderon

Main content start

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2023–2024 Academic Year

Can Market Access lead to Conflict and the Disruption of Property Rights? Evidence from Railroads Construction in 19th Century Peru

Governance and Institutions

The expansion of transport infrastructure is thought to be a key driver of development because it expands the number of markets that are available to our products and facilitates the movement of people. At the same time, a greater exposure to foreign markets can make local communities more vulnerable, especially those living under precarious institutions. We provide evidence that market access can have enduring negative consequences on conflict by studying the construction of Peru’s railroad network. We also document the mechanisms that produce and make violence persistent for more than 100 years and created current patterns of land tenure insecurity.


Alvaro Calderon, Department of Economics

headshot of Alvaro Calderon

Alvaro Calderon is a 4th-year PhD student in the Economics department. His main interests are in the fields of Development Economics, Political Economy and Economic History. He is currently studying conflict and property rights in Peru and Bolivia. His work combines the study of historical and modern settings to understand the interrelation between economic development and politics.

Return to past recipients of graduate student research funding