Elusive economic peace dividend in Sri Lanka: all that glitters is not gold

This research paper compares and contrasts the post-civil war economic development in the conflict-affected Eastern and Northern Provinces and the Southern and Western Provinces in Sri Lanka. In spite of high economic growth in the conflict-affected provinces, employment generation has been very low; unemployment rates and poverty are very high. Moreover, the ruling party (at the time of the first draft of this paper in June 2014) has lost significant share of its vote received in the recent provincial elections (2012–2014) compared to its share of votes at the provincial elections in the immediate aftermath of the civil war (2008–2010) indicating that the economic growth at national and provincial levels has not filtered down to the households.