IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/20854.html

Refugees and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Ukrainians in Poland

Author

Listed:
  • Vezina, Pierre-Louis
  • Aksoy, Cevat Giray
  • Lewandowski, Piotr

Abstract

We examine business creation by Ukrainian refugees in Poland following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Using registry data, we show that Ukrainians started 38,833 firms in 2022–23, accounting for 7% of all new registrations in Poland. We link this entrepreneurship to refugees in two ways. First, our survey shows that 58% of post-invasion Ukrainian founders registered as refugees. Second, cross-county regressions show that a 10% increase in adult male Ukrainian refugees is associated with a 2.71% increase in Ukrainian firm registrations. We then show that new Ukrainian businesses stimulate rather than crowd out Polish entrepreneurship. Using a shift-share strategy based on refugee shocks and Ukrainians’ comparative advantage, we find that a 10% increase in Ukrainian registrations led to 2.31% more Polish firms. Survey evidence suggests two mechanisms: emulation, with 59% of Ukrainian owners reporting Polish entrepreneurs starting similar firms, and supply-chain linkages, with 88% of Ukrainian firms engaged in local business-to-business transactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Vezina, Pierre-Louis & Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Lewandowski, Piotr, 2025. "Refugees and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Ukrainians in Poland," CEPR Discussion Papers 20854, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20854
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP20854
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20854. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CEPR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cepr.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.