The Effect of Refugee Inflows on Host Communities

By Jennifer Alix-García, D. Saah. 2010

220 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Despite the large and growing number of humanitarian emergencies, there is little economic research on the impact of refugees and internally displaced people on the communities that receive them. This analysis of the impact of the refugee inflows from Burundi and Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 on host populations in western Tanzania shows large increases in the prices of nonaid food items and more modest price effects for aid-related food items. Food aid is shown to mitigate these effects, though its impact is smaller than that of the increases in the refugee population. Examination of household assets suggests positive wealth effects of refugee camps on nearby rural households and negative wealth effects on households in urban areas.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/534107b7b3c39becb785bce4c0b6810a9d6889ac

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

1. Jean-François Maystadt
2. Philip Verwimp
3. Isabel Ruiz
4. Carlos Vargas‐Silva

In Safety Research

1. Jean-François Maystadt
2. Philip Verwimp
3. Isabel Ruiz
4. Carlos Vargas‐Silva
5. Jennifer Alix-García

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Jean-François Maystadt
2. Philip Verwimp
3. Isabel Ruiz
4. Carlos Vargas‐Silva
5. W. Hassink
6. Y. E. Akgunduz
7. Jennifer Alix-García
8. Marcel van den Berg

Citations in the corpus

• The Labor Market Impacts of Forced Migration (2015, background): “The increase in population could lead to an increase in demand for new products and encourage enterprising natives to start different trade businesses (for example, the production of aid-related goods; Alix-Garcia and Saah, 2009).”
• The Impact of Refugee Crises on Host Labor Markets: The Case of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Turkey (2015, background): “Alix-Garcia and Saah (2010) show that the refugee crisis in Rwanda caused an increase in food prices in Tanzania and that food aid can help dampen price level increases. Note that the study of Alix-Garcia and Saah (2010) concerns an analysis of food prices at the national level in Tanzania. Empirica”
• Do refugee camps help or hurt hosts? The case of Kakuma, Kenya (2018, background): “The findings of these range from marginally positive effects on local populations through increases in the prices of crops sold by locals (Alix-Garcia & Saah 2010), negative impacts resulting from increased price volatility, (Borton et al. 1996, Whitaker 1999), and zero price effects (Landau 2002).”
• Winners and Losers among a Refugee-Hosting Population (2014, methodology): “Based on two different sets of data, AlixGarcia and Saah (2008) assess the impact of the proximity to a refugee camp through changes in agricultural prices between 1995 and 1998. They also test the impact of massive refugee inflows on the holding of assets. Two important results might be emphasised.”