Impacts of Humanitarian Programs on Refugee Well-being
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (CST)
- Chair: Sandra Rozo, Research Department World Bank, IZA, CEGA, CESR
Reparations as Development? Evidence from Victims of the Colombian Armed Conflict
Abstract
We estimate the effects of reparations on victims’ well-being. We leverage variation from Colombia’s reparations program for victims of forced displacement, homicide, landmines, and other human rights violations in armed conflict. We focus on financial reparations, which consist of a one-off, lump-sum, non-means-tested, and unconditional payment of up to US$10,000 (PPP US$26,000), or about three times the annual household income of victims. The transfer is highly progressive because most victims are poor. We exploit the staggered rollout of the reparations payments and their unanticipated receipt using event-study approaches to identify causal effects up to four years later. We construct novel and comprehensive administrative panel microdata and estimate effects on work, living standards, health care utilization, and the next generation’s human capital. There are four main results. First, reparations induce a slight shift of workers from high-risk and low-paying formal jobs. Some workers spend more time out of formal employment and find higher-paying jobs. Others invest the money in new businesses, making businesses more sustainable. Second, reparations improve victims’ living conditions, boosting consumption and homeownership. Third, reparations reduce victims’ emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and medical procedures, consistent with improved health. Fourth, victims invest the reparations payment in their children, raising their standardized test scores and postsecondary school attendance. Despite their fiscal cost, reparations are cost beneficial. We conclude that reparations substantially improve victims’ well-being without meaningfully distorting their labor supply and have value for development in addition to their value for transitional justice.Life out of the Shadows: Impacts of Amnesties in the Lives of Refugees
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of a government regularization program offered to half a million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. For this purpose, 2,232 surveys of refugee families were collected and used to compare refugees who arrived in Colombia around a specified eligibility date in 2018. We find that program beneficiaries experienced improvements in consumption (60 percent), income (31 percent), physical and mental health (1.8 sd), registration rates in the system that assesses vulnerability and awards public transfers (40 pp), and financial services (64.3 pp), relative to other refugees. The program also induced a change in labor formalization of 10 pp.Legalizing Entrepreneurs: Evidence from a Mass Immigration Pardon
Abstract
This paper shows that providing undocumented immigrants with an immigration pardon, or amnesty, makes them more likely to be entrepreneurs. We study a 2018 policy shift in Colombia that made nearly half a million undocumented migrants eligible for documentation. Using administrative census data linked to the full Colombian formal business registry, we introduce a novel extension to a regression discontinuity design to study this policy. Our identification uses quasi-random variation in the amount of time available to immigrants to get the visa. We then estimate the causal impact of legal status on (formal) firm formation. Our results suggest that receiving documentation causes previously-undocumented immigrants to start more firms at a rate above native Colombians. Most new entrepreneurship takes two years from the visa issuance to come about, and includes both employer and non-employer firms. The evidence appears consistent with a mechanism whereby legalization induces migrants to invest greater time developing new firms.Discussant(s)
Anna Maria Mayda
,
Georgetown University, CEPR, IZA, and CReAM
Isabel Ruiz
,
Oxford University
Dany Bahar
,
Brown University, Harvard University, and IZA
Sandra Rozo
,
World Bank, IZA, University of California-Berkeley, and CESR-USC
JEL Classifications
- J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
- J1 - Demographic Economics