A gravity analysis of refugee mobility using mobile phone data

Michel Beine, Luisito Bertinelli, Rana Cömertpay, Anastasia Litina () and Jean-François Maystadt

Journal of Development Economics, 2021, vol. 150, issue C

Abstract: The objective of this study consists in analyzing the determinants of the internal mobility of refugees in Turkey. We track down this mobility relying on geolocalized mobile phone calls data and bring these measures to a micro-founded gravity model in order to estimate the main drivers of refugee mobility across 26 regions in 2017. Our results show that the movements of refugees are sensitive to income differentials and contribute therefore to a more efficient allocation of labor across space. Comparing these findings with those of individuals with a non-refugee status, we find that refugees are more sensitive to variations of income at origin and to distance, while less responsive to changes in income at destination. These findings are robust to the way mobility is inferred from phone data and to the choice of the geographical unit of investigation. Further, we provide evidence against some alternative explanations of mobility such as the propensity to leave refugee camps, transit through Turkey, social magnet effects and sensitivity to agricultural business cycles.

Keywords: Refugee mobility; Gravity model of migration; Forced displacement; Mobile phone data; News media; Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:150:y:2021:i:c:s0304387820301930

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102618

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