Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149551 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
ifo Working Paper No. 229
Publisher: 
ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, Munich
Abstract: 
This study contributes to the literature that analyzes the consequences of economic sanctions for the target country’s human rights situation. We offer a political economy explanation for different types of human rights infringements or improvements in reaction to economic shocks caused by sanctions. Based on this, we derive hypotheses linking sanctions to four types of human rights: economic rights, political and civil rights, basic human rights, and emancipatory rights. We use endogenous treatment regression models to estimate the causal average treatment effect of US economic sanctions on each type of human rights within a uniform empirical framework. In contrast to previous studies, we find no adverse effects of sanctions on economic rights, political and civil rights, and basic human rights, once the endogenous selection into sanctions is modelled. With respect to women’s rights, our findings even indicate a positive relationship. Emancipatory rights are, on average, strengthened when a country experiences sanctions by the US. Our findings are robust and we find little evidence for effect heterogeneity between types of target countries or sanctions. Most importantly, this study shows that the endogeneity of treatment assignment must be modelled when the consequences of sanctions are studied empirically.
Subjects: 
Democratization
discrimination
economic sanctions
endogenous treatment model
human rights
repression
United States
JEL: 
F51
F52
F53
K10
K11
P14
P16
P26
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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