3. A Review of the literature: Effect of governance at origin

and North African refugees and asylum seekers are hosted (the other category therefore refers to countries hosting less than 1 percent of total Middle Eastern and North African refugees and asylum seekers in 2020), while the right pie differentiates between Middle Eastern and North African countries and other countries as countries of asylum for refugees and asylum seekers from Middle Eastern and North African origin countries.

Because of the presence of many Syrian refugees in Turkey, 49 percent of total refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa were hosted in Turkey in 2020. Lebanon and Jordan, Syria’s neighboring countries, hosted an additional 20 percent of refugees and asylum seekers in 2020. Iraq and Egypt each hosted 3 percent of total refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa, and Austria, Germany, and Sweden hosted 14 percent of refugees and asylum seekers. Overall, in 2020, 27 percent of refugees and asylum seekers are hosted in Middle Eastern and North African countries.

3. A Review of the literature: Effect of governance at origin

The migration literature identifies several push and pull factors that affect migration flows. This section focuses primarily on governance-related push factors that could affect migration flows and forced displacement in origin countries. It discusses related literature on the role of demographic factors, economic and political freedoms, economic underperformance, climate change, and conflict in shaping migration flows from highly affected countries or geographic areas.

Demographic Factors

Demographic fundamentals are among the most important drivers of international migration. Several papers have examined the impact of demographic factors in origin countries such as population size, share of urban population, share of youth population, and growth of the labor force on migration flows. For instance, Karemera, Oguledo, and Davis (2000) and Poprawe (2015) find that larger populations at origin increase migration, with the former focusing on migration to North America and Canada and the latter on bilateral flows covering 230 countries. Apart from population size, structure, and composition of the population at origin also seem to matter. Vogler and Rotte (2000), who study migration flows from 86 Asian and African countries to Germany, find that a 1 percent rise in the share of the urban population increases the number of migrants by 2.7 percent. Likewise, Bertocchi and Strozzi (2008), who study the determinants of 19th century mass migration, find that countries with a higher share of young people have larger emigration flows.

Economic, Political, and Institutional Freedoms

Another strand of the literature examines the role of economic and political institutions in origin countries and economic and institutional differentials between origin and destination countries in driving migration flows. Ashby (2010) finds that economic freedom differentials between origin and destination countries are associated with bilateral migration. Likewise, Nejad and Young (2016) find that migrants are attracted to destinations with sounder currencies, lessburdensome regulations, and stronger property rights and legal systems.

Nejad and Young (2016) show that differences between destination and origin institutional scores and political freedoms are also significant determinants of migration decisions. Ariu, Docquier, and Squicciarini (2016) further disentangle the effects of the quality of domestic and foreign institutions on migrant inflows and outflows. They show that countries with better institutions have fewer emigrants, whereas better institutions at destination attract highly skilled emigrants. Poprawe (2015) shows that countries with more corruption have higher emigration rates and lower immigration rates.

Economic Underperformance and Income Differentials

The literature has also shown that income differentials—usually captured by a measure of the wage gap—have a large impact with richer countries attracting larger migration flows. Focusing on migration to Germany, Vogler and Rotte (2000) find that a 1 percent increase in the difference between origin and destination countries increases migration by 1.6 percent. Ariu, Docquier, and Squicciarini (2016) find that, the larger the skill-specific wage gap between a pair of origin-destination countries, the greater the net migration flow from the latter to the former. Nejad and Young (2016) corroborate these findings by highlighting that the per capita income gap between origins and destinations has different effects on low- and high-skilled migration flows. They show that income differentials matter more for high-skilled migration—probably because of the higher expected returns to human capital associated with destination-origin income differences that college-educated individuals might experience.

Climate Change

Natural disasters and climate change are important factors driving human mobility, in the form of international migration, internal migration, and forced displacement. Several studies provide evidence that international migration flows increase with higher temperatures (Backhaus, Martinez-Zarzoso, and Muris 2015; Cai et al. 2016). Consistent with these studies, Cattaneo and Peri (2016) found that higher temperatures increased internal and international migration rates but only in middle-income countries, where migration is an important margin of adjustment to global warming. They found that the relationship was negative in poor countries—consistent with the presence of severe liquidity constraints. Abel and colleagues (2019) found that drought severity has been an important determinant for asylum seeking in recent years, and Beine and Parsons (2015) and Drabo and Mbaye (2015) found that natural disasters such as epidemics and hydrological disasters also spurred international migration.

Political Violence and Conflict

Several papers have shown that political violence and conflict serve as a main push factor for migration and forced displacement. An increase in the incidence of international violence and the occurrence of civil war were found to be associated with higher migration flows (Beine and Parsons 2015; Drabo and Mbaye 2015). Conflict can also be a cause of displacement. Vogler and Rotte (2000) find that asylum seeker inflows to Germany from African and Asian countries were larger the higher the level of terror in origin countries. Likewise, Moore and Shellman (2004) and Abel and colleagues (2019) found that countries experiencing war tended to have a greater probability of sending asylum-seeking applications to the rest of the world and to be at the origin of forced migrant flows (refugees and IDPs).