At the same time, they find evidence of a large housing deficit in the low-income areas of the host cities. The second channel might be an increase in crime associated with the inflows of IDPs, measured by the homicide rate in the host cities, which has a negative impact on high-income rental prices. In a separate paper from Depetris-Chauvin and Santos (2017), the authors’ OLS and IV estimates indicate that the inflow of IDPs decreases food prices, although the authors express concern about reverse causality, as lower food prices might increase violence and internal displacement. They also find some evidence of a decrease in per capita consumption expenditures. This might be the result of increased rental prices and negative impacts on labor market outcomes.

Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan Following a stream of mass protests in central Syrian Arab Republic and the subsequent crackdown on the part of the Syrian authorities in the spring of 2011, Syria slid into a complex civil war that is still raging at the time of writing in 2018. Within three years from the beginning of the conflict over five million Syrians had left the country most of which settled as refugees in neighboring countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. The bulk of the exodus occurred between 2011 and 2013 resulting in approximately 0.25 m refugees in Iraq, 0.67m in Jordan, 0.95 m in Lebanon and 3.6 m in Turkey.<sup>31</sup> It is also estimated than an additional 6 m people have been displaced within Syria. Overall, more than 10 m people – about half of the pre-conflict Syrian population - has been displaced during the conflict thus far.

The impact of refugees on host communities has been studied mainly for Turkey in a string of studies that focused on labor market outcomes. Akgündüz et al. (2015) study the influx of Syrian refugees in SouthEast Turkey and find a non-significant effect on employment whether employment is broken down by region, province or skill level. Del Carpio and Wagner (2015) using the Turkish Labor Force Survey (LFS) and an IV approach find a negative and significant impact on local employment in the informal sector but a positive and significant impact on the formal sector. Similarly, Ceritoglu et al. (2017) and Tumen (2016) find Syrian refugees to have a positive and significant effect on formal employment explained by the performance of older workers and a negative effect on informal employment explained by a negative performance of younger workers. Using a regional panel data set for the period 2004-2016, Esen and Binatli (2017) is the only study that finds an increase in unemployment and a decrease not only in informal but also in formal employment as a result of the refugee influx. The results of Akgündüz and Torun (2018) suggest that the refugee inflow led to occupational upgrading of natives, as their task complexity increased, particularly for medium-skilled natives.

Three studies on Turkey also looked at the impact on prices. Akgündüz et al. (2015) find a positive and significant effect on food and housing prices and a non-significant effect on hospitality prices. Balkan and Tumen (2016) find instead that prices have declined as a result of the refugee influx due to an increase in cheap labor supply particularly in the informal sector. Using a simple DD approach, Balkan et al. (2018) find that housing rents increased in the range of an additional 3.5-5.5 percent in refugee receiving regions in the short run (2012-2013) compared to control regions, as housing supply is inelastic in the short run. The effect is negative and statistically insignificant for below-median rents, but positive and statistically significant for high-rent housing. They interpret this as a sign of residential segregation, with natives moving out of lower-priced neighborhoods where refugees settled.

The only other country affected by the Syrian crisis where studies are available is Jordan. Fallah et al. (2018) look at Syrian refugees in Jordan and find that locals have not experienced negative labor market outcomes if one considers labor market participation, employment, employment by type or wages. They find no difference between the labor market outcomes of locals living in areas with a high share of refugees and those who do not. Fakih and Ibrahim (2016) look at Syrian refugees in three governorates of Jordan and use a longitudinal vector autoregressive model (VAR) to assess the impact of refugees flows on local employment. Similarly to Fallah et al. (2018) they find no correlation between refugee flows and local

> 31 Based on UNHCR data as of January 2019 (https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria).

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