Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/295614 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CReAM Discussion Paper Series No. 05/20
Publisher: 
Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London, London
Abstract: 
We investigate the long-term consequences of mass refugee inflow on economic develop-ment. After the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922, 1.2 million Greek Orthodox were forciblyresettled from Turkey to Greece, increasing the host population by more than 20% within afew months. To examine the long-term effects of this event, we build a novel geocoded datasetlocating refugee settlements across the universe of more than four thousand Greek municipali-ties that existed in 1920. Using a battery of empirical strategies relying on different margins ofspatial and temporal variation in the refugee inflow, we find that localities with a greater shareof Greek refugees in 1923 display higher level of prosperity and industrialization sixty yearsafter the event. These long-run benefits of refugees appear to be driven by the provision of newagricultural know-how and the transfer of technological knowledge in textile, which fosteredgrowth through higher diversity in complementary skills. The economic gains of the resettle-ment were lower in places where refugees were clustered in separate enclaves and where theirskills were less easily transferable due to local geographic conditions.
Subjects: 
Refugees
Immigration
historical persistence
economic development
JEL: 
O10
O43
N34
N44
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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