The Economics of Forced Displacement : An Introduction
Forced displacement -- defined as the displacement of refugees and internally displaced persons due to violence -- has reached an unprecedented scale and global attention during the past few years, particularly in the aftermath of the Syrian refuge...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/416021493129519342/The-economics-of-forced-displacement-an-introduction http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26476 |
| Summary: | Forced displacement -- defined as the
displacement of refugees and internally displaced persons
due to violence -- has reached an unprecedented scale and
global attention during the past few years, particularly in
the aftermath of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011 and the
European Union's migration crisis in 2015. As this
plight gained momentum, economics found itself unprepared to
answer the basic questions surrounding refugees and
internally displaced persons. Few economists or institutions
were working on forced displacement. Economic theory or
empirics had little to offer in articles published in
journals. Data were scarce, unreliable, or inaccessible. Can
economics rise to the challenge? Is the economics of forced
displacement different from neoclassical economics? Can
off-the-shelves models be used to study forced displaced
populations? What is missing to do the economics of forced
displacement? What are the data constraints that limit
economists in this work? This paper provides a first
nontechnical introduction to these topics. The paper argues
that the modeling of utility, choice, risk, and information
in a short-term setting is the key to address the problem.
Neoclassical economics lacks some of the theoretical
ingredients that are needed, but recent developments in game
theory, neuroeconomics, and behavioral economics have opened
new horizons that make the task of modeling forced
displacement within reach. Empirics is clearly limited by
the scarcity of quality data, but an example shows how
welfare economists can start working with existing data.
Economists have no excuse to maintain the status quo and
should get on with the work on forced displacement. |
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