Global migration and the role of terrorist attacks

This paper analyses how terrorism has shaped global bilateral migration in the past decades. Previous research demonstrates a wide range of psychological and economic effects from terrorism which might serve as a push and/or counter-pull factor for migration and location choice. Yet, the role of terrorism has so far received relatively limited attention in the migration literature. Combining data on yearly bilateral migration rates with data on terrorist activity in 154 countries of origin and destination over the period 1975-2017, we find that terrorism acts both as a push factor for migration and as a repulsive factor for location choice. These results are robust across different specifications, samples and estimation techniques. Our evidence indicates that migration rates respond primarily to variations in the intensity rather than the mere occurrence or frequency of attacks. We find that terrorism induces international emigration only at extreme levels, while modest levels of terrorism are already enough to reduce a countries' attractiveness to potential migrants. Moreover, the effect of terrorist attacks varies across migration corridors.