With 4.7 million Syrians displaced outside of Syria and thousands more fleeing the country every day, the issue of refugee flows has been a fixture on the global stage. Although refugee flows have been widely studied by other disciplines, they have largely evaded economic analysis. This study examines whether refugee flows are associated with trade patterns; specifically, whether trade between two countries is a determinant in refugee flight patterns. Are refugees more likely to flee to countries with which their country of origin engages in more trade, whether because of decreased transportation costs, increased information or greater economic opportunity? The empirical analysis is based on a panel dataset including refugee data and import/export data for 169 countries from the years 2001-2013. Refugee data includes the number of refugees registered in a country of asylum from a specific country of origin for all countries and years while import and export data for these same countries and years was used to represent trade between countries. A linear regression was carried out to determine whether there exists an association between refugee flows and international trade. Data regarding population, distance, gross domestic product per capita, and political rights measures was also included to understand how these factors relate to refugee flows. A significant, positive relationship was found between imports and refugee flows per population, indicating that a sending country's top import partners are likely to receive the largest number of refugees from said sending country during periods of internal conflict. These highly significant findings suggest that trade links are indicative of where refugees will flee in crises. This study presents new findings as well as questions that will add to the growing economic literature on refugee movements that serves to direct policy and international aid responses to this complicated global issue.
Acknowledgements: I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Jere Berhman and Dr. Luca Bossi for their guidance and mentorship throughout this process. This paper would not have been possible without their constant support and feedback along the way. Thank you to Jessica Stanton for inspiring me to write on the topic of refugees and for encouraging me to take on an empirical challenge.