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in the construction industry. The government secured investment for a rapidly
collapsing domestic construction industry, simultaneously providing relief for the
most acute physical and politicai need (mass homelessness / displaced persons).
Large scale public investment in both public and private housing projects in the
immediate post-war period, restored the battered confidence of a sector which was
to replace fixed capital and provide (mostly indirectly) much necessary foreign
exchange. It also triggered complementary consumption patterns (a replacement of
lost household goods and furnishings, with [some] domestic products), with wages
(a multiplier) provided by utilising costs (displaced persons) as resources (labour in
the construction and manufacturing sectors).
The economic performance and social mobility of refugees versus non refugees may
be an important variable, both in the context of refugees being key economic
resources and in the more general sense of offering an alternative explanation of the
post-war recovery. Zetter, perhaps of necessity, does not include Turkish-Cypriot
refugees in his analysis and also does not disaggregate refugees into social classes.
Where human capital is concerned, Greek-Cypriots had more recently successful
entrepreneurs amongst their "refugees" to apply new capital to. The différences
between the "refugees" from the north and those from the south may be a factor in
explaining subséquent divergence in recovery rates; différences in "human capital"
resources (experience, skills and éducation), rather than "culture" and différences in
the ability to secure new investment in a relocated economy. These questions,
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