Research

Publications (refereed journals)

  • Polygyny, Conflict and Gender Inequality: A Cautionary Tale. (joint with Tim Krieger)

Global Society (online first). Article

  • Long-Term Relatedness between Countries and International Migrant Selection. (joint with Tim Krieger and Jens Ruhose)

Journal of International Economics, 113, 35-54, 2018. Article

  • Stymied Ambition: Does a Lack of Economic Freedom Lead to Migration? (joint with Daniel Meierrieks)

Journal of Population Economics, 30, 977-1005. Article

Book Chapters

Work in Progress

  • Leaving no one behind? An Analysis of the Role of Polygyny on Marriage Market Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. (joint with Renate Hartwig)

  • Polygyny, Inequality, and Social Unrest. (joint with Tim Krieger) Latest Draft

  • Islamist Terrorism and the Role of Women. (joint with Daniel Meierrieks ) Latest Draft

  • The decision to flee: Analyzing gender-specific determinants of international refugee migration. (joint with Lena Schmid)

  • A ‘Good Deal’? U.S. Military Aid and Refugee Flows to the United States (joint with Eugen Dimant, Tim Krieger and Daniel Meierrieks)

Workshops and Conferences

FRIAS Junior Researcher Conference - The Economics of Migration: Perspectives on Family, Gender, and Fertility (Lead organizer)

Abstracts

Polygyny, Inequality, and Social Unrest

This paper proposes three theoretical mechanisms through which polygyny may be related to social unrest. The mechanisms are related to different dimensions of grievance-inducing and, partly, greed-related inequality, which may occur in polygynous societies. These dimensions include (i) economic, reproductive and social inequality resulting in relative deprivation among non-elite men; (ii) inequality within elites when it comes to the distribution of resources and inheritance, both related to the relative position of dependent family members in a clan; and (iii) gender inequality in general. Using data for 41 African countries from 1990-2014, we provide evidence for these mechanisms and their relationship to social unrest. We find that especially the first and third dimension of inequality are correlated with social unrest. Furthermore, we consider several potential counter-arguments but do not find support for them.


Islamist Terrorism and the Role of Women

We investigate the effect of Islamist terrorist activity on women’s economic, political and legal position in society, using data for 168 countries between 1970 and 2016. We provide robust evidence that increased activity by Islamist terrorist groups is associated with lower levels of women’s empowerment and rights. Various instrumental-variable approaches yield the same conclusion, suggesting that the adverse effect of Islamist terrorism on women’s rights is causal. Further emphasizing the role of violent Islamist fundamentalism, we find no evidence that Islam per se (as indicated by a country’s Muslim population share) affects the position of women in society. Finally, we show that left-wing and nationalist-separatist terrorism do not affect women’s rights, which reinforces the notion that Islamist terrorism is singularly interested and effective in achieving weaker women’s rights. We argue that our findings are consistent with predictions of a strategic model of terrorism, where (1) Islamist terrorists use violence to curb women’s rights because they consider modern notions of gender equality to be corruptive and (2) make concessions that constrain the role of women in society because the costs of compliance are lower that the political and economic harm that would result from further Islamist terrorist attacks.



The decision to flee: Analyzing gender-specific determinants of international refugee migration

We ask whether gender differences in flight patterns exist. To do so, we build a model allowing for gender differences along three dimensions of the decision to flee: reasons to leave the home country (push factors), the risks and costs along the route (cost factors), and the factors attracting individuals to a specific destination (pull factors). For the empirical analysis, we study refugee movements by gender in 2001-2015 in Africa and Asia, thereby capturing more than 65% of global refugee flows. Our results show that gender differences exist and vary across the three dimensions: Reactions to the need to flee due to high-intensity conflict are relatively similar. However, concerning the cost dimension, male and female flight behavior differs (substantially). Further, flight patterns into neighboring countries are not gender-specific. In contrast, for non-neighboring country pairs, we observe different responses for males and females to various push and pull factors.


Where Do Migrants from Countries Ridden by Environmental Conflict Settle? On the Scale, Selection and Sorting of Conflict-Induced Migration

Environmentally induced conflicts can trigger migration. This paper analyzes the location decisions of migrants, i.e., the ‘sorting’ of migrants into alternative destinations. We argue that this sorting depends on a variety of factors. The selection of migrants affects preferences over where to settle and depends on the underlying type of environmentally induced conflict. In addition to (transport-related) migration costs, migration governance shapes the sorting pattern of migrants. Immigration policies in destination countries impose further costs to migration or even prevent settlement. At the same time, national immigration policies depend on the ‘supply’ of migrants that are expected to arrive, as well as on other countries’ policies regarding immigration. In addition, coordination failure of destination countries may feed back to the sorting decisions of migrants. The chapter discusses sorting not only from a theoretically but also empirical perspective, thereby highlighting both existing studies on sorting and the empirical challenges to analyzing sorting behavior in the context of migration that is induced by environmental conflict.