Forced Displacement, the Perpetuation of Autocratic Leaders, and Development in Origin Countries

Nicolas Cabra-Ruiz, Sandra Rozo and Maria Micaela Sviatschi

No 33131, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: How does forced displacement shape development in origin countries? We examine the case of Venezuela, where over seven million people have been forcibly displaced. Our study compares municipalities with different proportions of foreign-born populations before and after the international oil price shocks that accelerated forced displacement between 2014 and 2019. Our findings show that municipalities with higher foreign-born populations in 1990, exhibiting greater out-migration from Venezuela after 2014, experienced lower economic development and higher inequality. We shed light on a novel mechanism: forced displacement facilitates the perpetuation of autocratic leaders, further hindering development. It does so by weakening the opposition’s voices and facilitating the expansion of organized crime and illicit sources of income.

JEL-codes: O10 P0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
Note: DEV POL
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w33131.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

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:nbr:nberwo:33131

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w33131
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().