Essays on Applied Microeconomics: the Impacts of Internal Displacement
Citation:
Muñoz Blanco, Laura, Essays on Applied Microeconomics: the Impacts of Internal Displacement, Trinity College Dublin, School of Social Sciences & Philosophy, Economics, 2023Download Item:
Abstract:
This dissertation consists of three essays at the intersection of applied microeco-
nomics and development economics. It tackles questions on the consequences of
internal displacement on intra-household and intra-community behaviours, with a
special focus on gender, social cohesion, and health outcomes.
Chapter 1 provides evidence that exposure to events that trigger population outflows
leads to early marriage by young women, putting them on a poor-life development
path. Exploiting a novel dataset and the plausibly exogenous occurrence of earth-
quakes within Indonesian provinces, I show that an earthquake raises the annual
hazard of women marrying before age 18 by 44%, compared to non-exposed young
women. Earthquakes’ overall effect on women’s marriage age masks substantial het-
erogeneity. The effects are larger for earthquake-induced migrant versus left-behind
women. Obtaining informal insurance from marriage induced migrants marry earlier
as a financial coping strategy: a marriage payment, increased labour return when
the husband joins the household, and social integration in receiving communities.
These mechanisms do not have a role for left-behind women. I find evidence that a
supply shock drives this result. Large population outflows and school building de-
struction that led to a drop in schooling explain the results for left-behind women.
Chapter 2 studies the long-term impacts of large inflows of forcibly displaced per-
sons on displaced-hosting social participation outcomes. I exploit the construction
of reservoirs during the Spanish dictatorship (1936-1975), which forced thousands
of people into displacement. I profit from the margin of whether a pre-dictatorship
project in 1933 planned the closest reservoir to a municipality, its size and distance to
implement an instrumental variable approach. For this purpose, I rely on a newly-
collected historical panel dataset on forced displacement and social participation.
The results show a long-term and sizable decrease in voter turnout and the number
of associations created in host communities. Additionally, the number of the forcibly
displaced population relative to the natives mitigates the impacts. I propose two
mechanisms: a decrease in general and institutional trust. A reservoir impacted
natives and forcibly displaced populations differently, leading to inter-group clashes with long-lasting effects on between-group and institutional trust.
Chapter 3 examines the impacts of the inflows of internally displaced people (IDP)
on polio incidence in host communities. To tackle this question, I use the mass
displacement of the population from the conflict-affected Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (F.A.T.A.) to other districts in Pakistan from 2008 to 2022. In a
difference-in-differences approach, I compare the new polio cases between host and
non-host districts before and after 2007. I exploit the spatial distribution of dis-
tricts relative to the border of the pre-colonial region of Pashtunistan to define the
host and non-host districts. I find that districts that received the IDP population
increased the number of additional polio cases per 100,000 inhabitants by 40% over
the mean incidence compared to non-host districts. There are three underlying
mechanisms: overpopulated communities with low immunization rates, precarious
health conditions, and the congestion of health services in host communities.
Sponsor
Grant Number
Trinity Research in Social Science (TRiSS) fellowships)
European Economic Association Young Economist Award
Royal Economic Society Grant
Author's Homepage:
https://tcdlocalportal.tcd.ie/pls/EnterApex/f?p=800:71:0::::P71_USERNAME:MUOZBLALDescription:
APPROVED
Author: Muñoz Blanco, Laura
Advisor:
Suesse, MarvinPublisher:
Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of EconomicsType of material:
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