Refugees and foreign direct investment: Quasi-experimental evidence from US resettlements

Anna-Maria Mayda, Christopher Parsons, Han Pham and Pierre-Louis Vézina

Journal of Development Economics, 2022, vol. 156, issue C

Abstract: We exploit the designs of two separate US refugee dispersal policies to provide causal evidence that refugees foster outward FDI to their countries and regions of origin. Drawing upon aggregated individual-level refugee and project-level FDI data, we show this effect holds in terms of new FDI projects, as well as capital invested and jobs created. Focusing on the specific case of Vietnam, we provide evidence that national domestic reforms amplified the positive FDI-creating effects of the overseas Vietnamese diaspora. Overall, our results highlight a new mechanism through which refugees foster development at their origins.

Keywords: Refugees; Networks; Foreign direct investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F21 F22 F23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387822000025
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Refugees and Foreign Direct Investment: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from U.S. Resettlements (2019)
Working Paper: Refugees and Foreign Direct Investment: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from U.S. Resettlements (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:156:y:2022:i:c:s0304387822000025

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102818

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Economics is currently edited by M. R. Rosenzweig

More articles in Journal of Development Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().