Macroeconomic volatility and anti‐refugee violence in developing countries: Evidence from commodity price shocks

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Michael Christian Lehmann
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12972

REGULAR ARTICLE

Macroeconomic volatility and anti-refugee

violence in developing countries: Evidence

from commodity price shocks

Michael Christian Lehmann

Department of Economics, University of

Brasilia, Brasília, Brazil

Correspondence

Michael Christian Lehmann, Department

of Economics, University of Brasilia,

Brasília DF 70910-900, Brazil.

Email: clehmann@unb.br

Abstract

I investigate the effect of macroeconomic (output) vola-

tility on anti-refugee violence in developing countries.

Opportunity cost, rapacity, and state capacity theories

predict ambiguous effects. For causal inference I lever-

age output volatility caused by plausibly exogenous

commodity price shocks. I find that adverse commodity

price shocks increase both violence of natives against

refugees and violence between refugees. My results

suggest that anti-refugee violence increases during

recessions and decreases during economic booms.

KEYWORDS

business cycle, conflict, forced migration, war, xenophobia

JEL CLASSIFICATION

E32, D74, O15

1|INTRODUCTION

Over the past 200 years, two world wars, ethnic cleansing, and civil wars have forced millions

of people to leave their homes and communities to escape violence. Today, according to official

figures of the United Nations, the number of people living as refugees globally is 22.5 million,

and the trend is increasing. Every nation on the world map has hosted refugees since World

War II. Most of the world's forced migrants flee to middle- or low-income countries: Africa, for

example, hosts a three-times-larger forced migrant population than Australia, Europe, and

North America combined (Maystadt, Hirvonen, Mabiso, & Vandercasteelen, 2019).

However, little is known about how refugees are treated by their hosts. Robert Shiller, Nobel

laureate and former president of the American Economic Association, goes as far as to assert that

“throughout history, the fate of refugees seeking asylum in another land has largely been

Received: 25 July 2022 Revised: 21 November 2022 Accepted: 27 December 2022

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12972

992 © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Rev Dev Econ. 2023;27:992–1012.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode

unstudied.”

1

Indeed, the literature has thus far mainly focused on the impact of refugees on host

countries or communities.

2

How hosts treat refugees has received comparatively little attention.

This article investigates a specific form of maltreatment of refugees: anti-refugee violence. Anti-

refugee violence is common (Benˇ

cek & Strasheim, 2016; Hangartner, Dinas, Marbach, Matakos, &

Xefteris, 2019;Marbach&Ropers,2018; Piatkowska, Hövermann, & Yang, 2020), its incidence is

growing (see Figure 1), and its negative impact on refugee well-being is large (Graeber &

Schikora, 2021; Knabe, Rätzel, & Thomsen, 2013; Steinhardt, 2018). Yet the determinants of anti-

refugee violence, particularly in developing countries, are poorly understood. Country-level evi-

dence is mainly confined to Germany, where anti-refugee violence is positively correlated with

unemployment (Falk, Kuhn, & Zweimueller, 2011), political support for right-wing parties

(Jäckle & König, 2017), the local share of residents born in Germany (Entorf & Lange, 2019), local

government efficiency (Ziller & Goodman, 2020), terrorist attacks (Jäckle & König, 2017), and fears

of German men that more refugees make it more difficult to find female partners (Dancygier,

Egami, Jamal, & Rischke, 2021).

3

Cross-country analysis finds an association between anti-refugee

violence and epidemic outbreaks (Braithwaite, Frith, Savun, & Ghosn, 2021), liberal refugee policies

(Savun, 2022), and terrorist attacks (Polo & Wucherpfennig, 2022; Savun & Gineste, 2019).

For low- and middle-income countries specifically, evidence on the determinants of anti-

refugee violence is scarce. Previous research has examined the link between anti-refugee vio-

lence and political factors (Onoma, 2013) or humanitarian aid (Lehmann & Masterson, 2020).

Onoma (2013) uses comparative cases from Guinea, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of

Congo to investigate why some refugee-hosting communities launch large-scale attacks on refu-

gees. He argues that such outbreaks of anti-refugee violence happen only when incumbent gov-

ernments instigate them because of links between a few refugees and opposition groups.

4

Lehmann and Masterson (2020) find that international humanitarian aid (cash transfers) for

Syrian refugees in Lebanon reduces anti-refugee violence, presumably because the aid boosts

the local economy and fosters positive contact between refugees and locals. Relatedly, Ghosn,

Braithwaite, and Chu (2019) find that Lebanese who have had contact with Syrian refugees are

less likely to show negative attitudes toward them.

0 5 10 15

violence of natives against refugees (% of host countries)

1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Year

FIGURE 1 Anti-refugee violence (1996–2015). Notes: The figure shows the percentage of refugee-hosting

countries with isolated, prevalent, or systematic violence of natives against refugees. Source: POSVAR (Political

and Societal Violence By And Against Refugees) data set (Gineste & Savun, 2019).

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