Reservoir-induced displacement and social participation: Evidence from the Spanish Dictatorship

Abstract: What are the long-term impacts of large inflows of forcibly displaced persons on displaced-hosting social participation outcomes? This paper tackles this question by exploiting the construction of reservoirs during the Spanish dictatorship (1936-1975), which forced thousands of people into displacement. I use the margin of whether the closest reservoir to a municipality was planned before the dictatorship, as well as 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. I show that host municipalities experience a long-term and sizable decrease in voter turnout and new associations created from 1977 to 2019. In turn, a higher internally displaced population share relative to the natives mitigates the impacts. I propose two mechanisms associated with a drop in host municipalities in institutional and general trust.

Abstract: This paper provides evidence that exposure to shocks 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 earthquakes within Indonesian provinces, I show that an earthquake raises the annual hazard of women marrying before the age of 18 by 44%, compared to non-exposed young women. The overall effect of earthquakes on women’s age at marriage masks substantial heterogeneity. The effects are larger for earthquake-induced migrant versus left-behind women. By obtaining informal insurance from marriage, induced migrants marry earlier as a financial coping strategy: a marriage payment, an increase in labour return when the husband joins the household, and social integration in receiving communities. This is not the case for left-behind women. I find evidence that a supply shock drives this result. Large population outflows and school building destruction that leads to a drop in schooling explain the results for left-behind women. 

Abstract: The rising number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in developing countries presents new challenges for vaccine distribution and disease eradication. How do IDP inflows affect polio incidence in host communities? Can a policy intervention that vaccinates IDP children during their migration mitigate the impacts? To answer these questions, we examine the Pakistani mass displacement from the conflict-affected Federally Administered Tribal Areas (F.A.T.A.) in 2008. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we compare new polio cases before and after 2008 in districts near and far from the conflict zone. By analyzing the spatial distribution of districts relative to the pre-colonial region of Pashtunistan, we identify host districts. Our findings show that a standard deviation increase in predicted IDP inflow leads to a rise in new polio cases per 100,000 inhabitants, with a 30% mean incidence. The main factor behind the results is the immunization gap between IDP and native children. Implementing a vaccination policy targeting IDP children during their migration journey helps bridge this gap.