ECA Talk: Forced Displacement

Presentation by Benjamin Elsner, Assistant Professor, School of Economics, University College Dublin

Presentation by Martina Viarengo, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Geneva Graduate Institute, and Tobias Müller, Associate Professor, Institute of Economics and Econometrics, Geneva School of Economics and Management

Presentation by Dejan Kovač, Postdoctoral Researcher, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

Presentation by Elie Murard, Assistant Professor, University of Alicante

Presentation by Çağlar Özden, Lead Economist, Development Economics, the World Bank

Forced displacement affects millions of people across the world. According to UNHCR, about 84 million people were forcibly displaced by the middle of 2021, including both refugees and internally displaced people. The current war in Ukraine has so far generated more than 5 million refugees and more than 7 million internally displaced people. The World Bank, together with UNHCR and FCDO, is leading a series of studies that expand our understanding of how policies and investments can help prevent conflict and promote social and economic integration of refugees and displaced persons. This ECA Talk will feature a presentation by the authors of four of these studies focusing on ECA countries.

How does the settlement of refugees influence attitudinal and behavioral measures of social cohesion? How do initial socio-economic conditions shape refugees’ integration into labor markets? How does individuals’ exposure to conflict correlate with contemporary social inequalities? What are the long-term effects of integration policies? These questions and related policy implications will be discussed during this session.

Benjamin Elsner
Assistant Professor, School of Economics, University College Dublin
Ben Elsner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at UCD. He is an applied microeconomist who uses state-of-the-art empirical methods to answer policy-relevant questions. Ben's work has been published in leading journals such as the Economic Journal, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of International Economics or Journal of Development Economics. Before joining UCD in 2018, Ben spent six years as a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn/Germany.
Martina Viarengo
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Geneva Graduate Institute
Martina Viarengo is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Economics. She is faculty associate at the Harvard University, Center for International Development and principal investigator of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research. Prior to joining the Graduate Institute's faculty, Professor Viarengo was an economist at the Centre for Economic Performance of the London School of Economics and a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Professor Viarengo is a specialist in public policy, labor economics and economic development. Her research focuses on labor markets, comparative education policy and international migration.
Tobias Müller
Associate Professor, Institute of Economics and Econometrics, Geneva School of Economics and Management
Tobias Müller is an associate professor at the Institute of Economics and Econometrics, University of Geneva. His current research focuses on economic aspects of international migration, in particular, the labor market effects of immigration and the political economy of migration. He has led several research projects in this area (financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Federal Administration and the European Union) and is currently a member of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) “On the Move: The Migration-Mobility Nexus”. His past research also includes studies on European integration and the analysis of tax-benefit reforms and their impact on income distribution and the labor market.
Dejan Kovač
Postdoctoral Researcher, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association
Dejan Kovač is a a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association. He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Princeton School of Public & International Affairs and the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University. Before his Princeton University appointment he was a PhD candidate and a Junior Researcher at CERGE-EI (Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute) in Prague the Czech Republic. His main research interests are International Political Economy, Behavioral Economics, Education Economics, and Health Economics. He is particularly interested in the detrimental effects of wars and conflicts on a variety of outcomes: child development, human capital accumulation, health, social values and norms.
Elie Murard
Assistant Professor, University of Alicante
Elie Murard is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alicante in Spain. From October 2015 until September 2019 he worked at IZA (Germany) as a Research Associate. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Paris School of Economics in December 2015 under the supervision of François Bourguignon. Prior to this, he also worked for the World Bank as a short-term consultant within the Development Prospects Group. His research interests are in International Migration and Development Economics. He is particularly interested in understanding the effects of migration on the countries of origin, and especially on the families of migrants left behind.
Dilip Ratha
Lead Economist, Migration and Remittances and Head of KNOMAD, the World Bank
Dilip Ratha is head of KNOMAD and lead economist, Migration and Remittances, Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. In a career spanning three decades, he has done pioneering work on remittances, migration, and innovative financing (diaspora bonds, future-flow securitization, shadow sovereign ratings). His TED talk, with over 1.4 million views, has inspired many fintech start-ups. He is the Founder of KNOMAD, Migrating out of Poverty Research Program Consortium, and African Institute of Remittances.
Çağlar Özden
Lead Economist, Development Economics, the World Bank
A Turkish national and a professional migrant, Caglar received his undergraduate degrees in economics and industrial engineering from Cornell University and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. He is a fellow of IZA, CreAM and ERF. His research explores the nexus of globalization of product and labor markets, government policies and economic development. He has edited three books and published numerous papers in leading academic journals such as American Economic Review and the Economic Journal.

ECA Talk on Forced Displacement

Details

RELATED