The Causes and Consequences of Refugee Flows: A Contemporary Reanalysis

Andrew Shaver, Benjamin Krick, Judy Blancaflor, Xavier Liu, Ghassan Samara, Sarah Yein Ku, Shengkuo Hu, Joshua Angelo, Martha Carreon, Trishia Lim, Rachel Raps, Alyssa Velasquez, Sofia de Melo and Zhanyi Zuo

American Political Science Review, 2025, vol. 119, issue 1, 526-534

Abstract: The world faces a forced displacement crisis. Tens of millions of individuals have been forced across international boundaries worldwide. Therefore, the causes and consequences of refugee flows are the subjects of significant social science inquiry. Unfortunately, the historical lack of reliable data on actual refugee flows, country-specific data reporting timelines, and more general pre-2000 data quality issues have significantly limited empirical inferences on these topics. We replicate 28 articles on these topics using data newly released after a multiyear collaboration with the United Nations on annual dyadic flows. We observe major inconsistencies between the newly released flow numbers and the stock-based flow estimates upon which decades of research are based; we also find widespread inappropriate treatment of missing historical values. When we replicate the existing literature using the newly introduced flow data, correcting the treatment of missing historical values, and temporally extending/restricting the study periods, we produce significantly different results.

Date: 2025
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