Research
Advanced projects
Shots, sympathy, and societal support: How conflict intensity translates into cooperative behaviour towards the displaced [Preprint]
Severe shocks, such as natural disasters or major conflicts, can trigger substantial international support in the immediate aftermath. The continuation of support depends on the level of attention in the public discourse. Whereas general attention will inevitably decline over time, a resurgence of fighting could potentially rekindle societal support abroad. Based on daily news coverage relating to 39 European countries, the emergence of such an offsetting effect is evaluated by introducing the concept of conflict pressure. Exploiting variation of publicly documented conflict intensity over time and space, this measure quantifies indirect exposure of countries not directly involved in a major conflict. To offset the observed declining material cooperation probability for major societal stakeholders during the initial four months, conflict pressure evident in the public discourse would have to increase by up to 60 percentage points.
Conflict on land, casualties at sea: Geographic spillover effects of remote conflicts on migration hazards [Preprint]
Violent conflicts can have devastating effects on local communities and the wider society in affected countries. The implications of ensuing forced displacement will not stop at national borders, but spill over into neighbouring countries. This research shows that violent conflicts may have even further-reaching repercussions, such as increasing migration hazards on migration routes far away. Using localised information on migrant vessels in distress and missing migrants from 2000-2021, this research sheds light on how civil wars and other violent conflict types around the Mediterranean Sea projected their fatal consequences onto the often distant sea. By devising the concept of Conflict Pressure, this research shows that fleeing dangerous areas towards seemingly safe harbours may not always result in the hoped-for gain in safety. Furthermore, integrating Conflict Pressure into a spatio-temporal framework allows to develop a parsimonious migration hazard forecast model for the Mediterranean Sea.
Refugee presence and inter-group cooperation: A global long-term analysis [Preprint]
The last three decades have seen notable political and societal changes. The end of the Cold War triggered an era of free movement for documented labour migrants. Since then, however, economic imbalances, violent conflicts, and climate change have also led to large-scale displacement events and the rise of major transnational refugee flows. In many host countries, "the-boat-is-full" narratives have emerged. This research investigates how cooperation patterns between domestic stakeholders and refugees have changed over the last 30 years. Using global news coverage from 1989 onward, the attitudes of major societal groups in more than 140 countries towards refugee groups are investigated. Despite widespread adversarial narratives, overall interaction patterns between domestic actors and refugees have become more cooperative during times of increasing refugee presence.
Run, graduate, run: Internationally mobile students' reactions to changing political landscapes in Europe [Discussion Paper, Policy Brief]
Over the last decades, Europe attracted an increasing number of internationally mobile students. The related influx of talent into European labour markets constituted an important factor in the knowledge economy. This research addresses the question of whether changing political landscapes in Europe, such as increasing support for right-wing parties, translated into a diminishing attractiveness of European economies. To this end, international graduates' staying behaviour in 28 European destination countries is compared based on bilateral stay rates for almost 150 countries of origin from 2009 to 2019. International graduates are found to display a notable sensitivity concerning political imbalances: A distinct dominance of the right political spectrum may lower the number of international graduates willing to stay by up to 50%. The effect is particularly strong in election years when voters' political preferences become more salient. Eventually, this amounts to a considerable loss for European economies since international graduates have acquired destination country-specific human capital and are easily integrated into host societies.
Work in progress
High-flying environmental attitudes vs. wanderlust: Regional demand for air travel in times of climate change
Emissions from air travel contribute substantially to climate change. Despite this fact having permeated the public discourse, demand for air travel has massively increased over the past decade. This study sheds light on the regional demand for air travel across 28 European countries from 2010 to 2019. More specifically, it evaluates to which degree airport-specific demand responds to changes in public environmental attitudes. It further addresses the occurrence of localised extreme weather events, which may act as reminders for the consequences of unsustainable consumption, and thus generate a potential feedback effect on air travel demand.
Area of Effect placebo tests: Evaluating the effect of imprecisely defined geographic interventions (find out more)
The emergence of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data offers a plethora of analytical approaches to investigate societal phenomena or policies in a spatial context. However, not all policies are implemented on the level of clearly delineated administrative areas. Some interventions might be active in imprecisely specified or only partially known geographic sectors. As a direct consequence, the resulting uncertainty regarding the Area-of-Effect (AoE) impacts on estimates of the effectiveness of a related policy. This uncertainty relates to a potential misspecification of the observed intervention area in three dimensions, i.e. its position, orientation and size. A new user-written Stata programme (aoeplacebo) offers two convenient approaches to analyse the potential impact of area misspecification on AoE estimates.
Completed research projects
MESARAS 2013: Mobility, Expectations, Self-Assessment and Risk Attitude of Students (PhD research project, find out more)
Internationally mobile students and their post-graduation migratory behaviour (OECD consultancy project, find out more)
Research affiliation
Asylum policies in Europe and the refugee crisis: new empirical evidence for better policy-making? This project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is dedicated to investigate the impact of asylum policies in European states on refugee flows and their subsequent experience in host countries (PI: Francesco Fasani).