The regional (re)allocation of migrants during the Great Lockdown in Italy

Massimiliano Ferraresi ()
Additional contact information
Massimiliano Ferraresi: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, 2022, vol. 39, issue 2, No 3, 403-426

Abstract: Abstract This paper presents first-hand evidence of the impact of Covid-19 on the re-allocation of migrants. I use monthly data on the migrants in reception centres and on daily arrivals in Italy during the period from October 2017 to October 2020, combined with information on Covid-19 cases across Italian regions. I employ a difference-in-differences design, finding that the presence of migrants decreased approximately 7% points more in regions highly exposed to the pandemic as compared to those less affected by Covid-19. In practice, migrants in second-line reception centres are reduced by approximately 381 units when considering a region less affected by the pandemic, and by around 2150 units in regions severely hit by the Covid-19 outbreak. Finally, back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that in more affected regions, such an unusual reallocation of migrants implies potential savings in the range of 60–94 million euros, corresponding to about a 30–90% reduction in spending on migrant, refugee, and asylum seekers in these regions, whereas the reduction is of roughly 3–6% in less exposed areas.

Keywords: Covid-19; Migration; Reception of refugees; Public expenditure on security and immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H51 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40888-022-00262-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:epolit:v:39:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s40888-022-00262-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40888

DOI: 10.1007/s40888-022-00262-y

Access Statistics for this article

Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics is currently edited by Alberto Quadrio Curzio

More articles in Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics from Springer, Fondazione Edison
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().