The Impact of Forced Displacement on Host Communities : A Review of the Empirical Literature in Economics
The paper reviews 49 empirical studies that estimate the impact of forced displacement on host communities. A review of the empirical models used by these studies and a meta-analysis of 762 separate results collected from them are the main contribu...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/654811549389186755/The-Impact-of-Forced-Displacement-on-Host-Communities-A-Review-of-the-Empirical-Literature-in-Economics http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31231 |
| Summary: | The paper reviews 49 empirical studies
that estimate the impact of forced displacement on host
communities. A review of the empirical models used by these
studies and a meta-analysis of 762 separate results
collected from them are the main contributions of the paper.
Coverage extends to 17 major forced displacement crises that
occurred between 1922 and 2015, to host countries at
different levels of economic development and different types
of forced migrants. The focus is on outcomes related to
household well-being, prices, employment, and wages. All
studies can be classified as ex post quasi-natural
experiments. The analysis on empirical modeling shows a
preference for partial equilibrium modeling,
differences-in-differences evaluation methods, and
cross-section econometrics, with all these choices largely
dependent on the type of data available. The meta-analysis
on household well-being shows that between 45 and 52 percent
of the results are positive and significant, indicating a
net improvement in household well-being. An additional 34 to
42 percent of the results are found to be nonsignificant,
and 6 to 20 percent show a decrease in household well-being.
The analyses on employment and wages show positive and
significant improvements for 12 to 20 percent of the
results, nonsignificant results in 63 percent of the cases,
and negative and significant results for 22 to 25 percent of
the results. Negative results on employment and wages relate
to young and informal workers in middle-income countries.
The results on prices show asymmetric behavior across types
of products. Overall, the probability of having a negative
outcome for host communities in the consumer and labor
markets is below 20 percent. |
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