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Refugee Return

Author

Listed:
  • Joop Age Harm Adema
  • Cevat Giray Aksoy
  • Yvonne Giesing

  • Panu Poutvaara

  • Yunus Aksoy

Abstract

Despite rising refugee numbers worldwide, refugees’ return decisions remain poorly understood. Prior work examines either intentions or realized return, but not both. We fielded a ten-wave panel of Ukrainian refugees, linking prewar home municipalities to geocoded conflict and territorial control data and eliciting war expectations. Intentions strongly predict behavior: by 2025, 42% of those planning to return soon in 2022 had returned, versus 1% of those planning to settle abroad. Increasing conflict in the home municipality reduces return there but barely affects return to Ukraine overall. More pessimistic war expectations explain 21% of the decline in return intentions.

Suggested Citation

  • Joop Age Harm Adema & Cevat Giray Aksoy & Yvonne Giesing & Panu Poutvaara & Yunus Aksoy, 2026. "Refugee Return," CESifo Working Paper Series 12550, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12550
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    References listed on IDEAS

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