What's in a number? Estimating the economic costs of armed violence

Armed violence imposes costs across multiple levels of society and especially on the poorest and most vulnerable. Although armed violence can benefit a small minority of the population—some gain from (new) employment opportunities and (often illicit) wealth transfers—there is overwhelming evidence of the ways it diminishes development prospects for the
majority and hinders achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
1 The annual global economic costs of armed violence run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. These financial, fixed, and human capital costs need to be considered in any estimate of the global burden of such violence. The precise dimensions of this economic burden depend, however, on how ‘costs’ are measured. The ‘costs’ of armed violence are here defined as the short- and longterm measurable effects that are convertible to welfare losses. Although there are many ways to calculate the economic costs, their true extent is
ultimately shaped by the duration, severity, and
spatial distribution of armed violence.