Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

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Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo

Research paper

International sanctions and emigration✩

Jerg Gutmann a,b , Pascal Langer c , Matthias Neuenkirch b,c ,∗
a
University of Hamburg, Germany
b
CESifo, Germany
c
Trier University, Germany

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

JEL classification: In this first statistical analysis of how international sanctions affect international migration,
F22 we apply two estimation strategies, a panel difference-in-differences model and an event study
F51 approach. Our dataset covers 79,791 dyad-year observations, reflecting migration flows from
J16
157 origin countries to 32 industrialized destination countries between 1961 and 2018. We
K38
find that UN and joint EU-US sanctions increase emigration from target countries by around 20
O15
percent. Our event study results for joint EU-US sanctions imply a gradual increase in emigration
Keywords:
throughout a sanction episode. The impact of UN sanctions on international migration is smaller
Exit
and less persistent. Moreover, the effects are driven by target countries with limited freedom
Gender differences
International sanctions of political expression, where emigration substitutes for the costly voicing of dissent. Finally,
Migration there appear to be no systematic gender differences in the migration effect of sanctions.
Voice

1. Introduction

Research on the effects of international sanctions, thus far, has focused on either macro-level outcomes for society1 or on political
leaders’ policy choices and their survival in office.2 At the same time, researchers have paid much less attention to how sanctions
affect citizens’ decision-making. Some research argues that sanction threats and imposed sanctions incentivize anti-government
protest (Grauvogel et al., 2017; Liou et al., 2021), which in turn might increase the likelihood that the government complies with
the sender’s political demands (Attia et al., 2020) and with those of nonviolent protest movements (Liou et al., 2023). Other studies,

✩ The authors gratefully acknowledge comments and suggestions by an anonymous reviewer, Abishek Choutagunta, Andrej Cvetić, Anne van Aaken, Bernd
Hayo, Daniel Meierrieks, Hashem Nabas, Hélène Thiollet, Houda Boubaker, Jamel Saadaoui, Jan Falkowski, Jérôme Valette, Klaus Gründler, Léa Marchal, Marek
Endrich, Mathilde Ceron, Panu Poutvaara, Pedro Christofaro Lopes, Rim Arem, Roee Sarel, Shreya Shankar, Stefan Voigt, Tanja Porčnik, Tim Krieger, Yulia
Khalikova, and from participants of the DIMIG Workshop on Migration Economics & the Political Economy of Immigration at Paris 1, the MACIE Seminar at
Philipps University of Marburg, the 7th International Conference on the Political Economy of Democracy and Dictatorship in Münster, the 2024 European Public
Choice Society Meeting in Vienna, the 2024 ZEW-ifo Young Scholar Political Economy Workshop in Fürth, the 14th European Political Science Association Annual
Meeting in Cologne, and the 2024 Silvaplana Workshop in Political Economy.
∗ Corresponding author at: Trier University, Germany.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Gutmann), [email protected] (P. Langer), [email protected] (M. Neuenkirch).
1 Sanctions, for example, have adverse effects on the economy (Gutmann et al., 2023b; Hatipoglu and Peksen, 2018; Neuenkirch and Neumeier, 2015; Peksen

and Son, 2015; Shchepeleva et al., 2024), increase economic inequality and poverty (Afesorgbor and Mahadevan, 2016; Moteng et al., 2023; Neuenkirch and
Neumeier, 2016), harm the health of target populations — especially that of their most vulnerable members (Gutmann et al., 2021), and reduce international
trade (Crozet and Hinz, 2020; Felbermayr et al., 2020; Gutmann et al., 2024) and capital flows (Besedeš et al., 2017; Biglaiser and Lektzian, 2011; Mirkina,
2018).
2 When facing sanctions, political leaders are more likely to violate basic, political, and civil rights (Adam and Tsarsitalidou, 2019; Gutmann et al., 2020;

Peksen and Drury, 2009; Wood, 2008) as well as property rights (Lee et al., 2023), while sanctions reduce those leaders’ likelihood of staying in office (Marinov,
2005).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106709
Received 8 March 2024; Received in revised form 5 June 2024; Accepted 22 August 2024
Available online 27 August 2024
0167-2681/© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

however, emphasize that sanctions would cause a rally-around-the-flag effect that strengthens the regime’s popularity and, thus, its
grip on the target country (Eichenberger and Stadelmann, 2022; Gold et al., 2024; Grauvogel and von Soest, 2014; Seitz and Zazzaro,
2020).3
Here, we conduct the first statistical analysis of how sanctions cause international migrant flows originating from target
countries.4 Whereas previous studies have focused on whether citizens react to sanctions by voicing criticism or support of the
government, we ask whether some citizens respond by exiting the polity altogether. There is only limited qualitative evidence
for an emigration-inducing effect of sanctions. Bossuyt (2000), for example, reports that emigration from Iraq skyrocketed under
sanctions (see Connell et al., 2021, for a similar discussion of the case of Haiti).5
Özdamar and Shahin (2021) identify the possible migration effect of sanctions as a central open research question in the literature
on the effects of sanctions and, so far, no empirical study has addressed this question. Our study also contributes to a literature that
has identified conflict events as a major driver of emigration (Davenport et al., 2003; Dreher et al., 2011; Moore and Shellman, 2004).
This literature has ignored international sanctions as a potentially important political shock responsible for emigration decisions.
In our empirical analysis, we apply two estimation strategies: a panel difference-in-differences (DiD) model and an event study
approach. Our dataset combines data from the Global Sanctions Data Base (GSDB, see Felbermayr et al., 2020) with migration
data from the OECD (2020) and the Determinants of International Migration (DEMIG, 2015) dataset. It covers 79,791 dyad-
year observations, reflecting migration flows from 157 origin countries to 32 destination countries between 1961 and 2018. We
distinguish the effects of (i) UN, (ii) joint EU-US (Western multilateral), (iii) EU unilateral, (iv) US unilateral, and (v) ‘‘non-Western’’
(i.e., imposed by China or Russia) sanctions.6
Our findings suggest that UN and Western multilateral sanctions have a significant positive effect on migration. Migration flows
from the target country increase by 17%–18% under UN sanctions and by 22%–24% under Western multilateral sanctions. Our
event study results for Western multilateral sanctions show a gradual increase in emigration throughout a sanction episode with a
peak effect of 80%–86% for long-lasting sanctions (relative to the final year before sanction imposition). The impact of UN sanctions
on international migration is smaller than that of Western multilateral sanctions (peak effect: 30%–31%) and less persistent. Our
findings can be interpreted as causal because the measured increase in emigration marks a significant deviation from the pre-trend.
In addition, migrant flows return to their pre-sanction level once sanctions are lifted. The results (in particular those for Western
multilateral sanctions) are driven by target countries with limited freedom of political expression. This is consistent with emigration
serving as a substitute for voicing dissent, especially where the latter is costly. Finally, our results indicate no gender differences in
the effects of sanctions on migration.
Section 2 outlines our theoretical arguments and derives testable hypotheses. Section 3 explains the estimation approach and the
data used to test our hypotheses. Section 4 presents the results of our panel difference-in-differences and event study estimations
and discusses their congruence with our theoretical predictions. Section 5 concludes and outlines the need for further research.

2. Theory

In his seminal book on ‘‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty’’, Hirschman (1970) contrasts two central accountability mechanisms the
members of an economic, political, or social organization can rely on vis-à-vis the organization’s leadership. He argues that
economists, with their trust in the virtues of competition, have disregarded the possible contribution of voice in ensuring the
accountability of leaders, just as political scientists, with their focus on protest and voting, have neglected the role of exit. Another
reason for economists’ and political scientists’ different analytical lenses is that exit is generally a private and often even a covert
decision, whereas using voice is a contribution to a public good. Not surprisingly, political scientists are less interested in decisions
that are typically not politically motivated and economists doubt citizens’ ability to overcome the collective action problem of voice
in most circumstances. Here, we argue that political scientists have also largely disregarded the possible role of exit in the discussion
of how citizens deal with the economic and political pressure created by international sanctions.7 Accordingly, emigration is one
way for citizens to respond to the negative consequences of sanctions and possibly their government’s inability or unwillingness to
mitigate them. However, this does not mean that citizens migrate to punish the government. It is rather the individually rational
choice of exit, which – if taken independently by many individuals – turns out to be collectively costly to the government and
potentially threatens its survival in office.
Other researchers who described the link between sanctions and migration have predicted the opposite of what follows from
Hirschman’s (1970) theory. Afesorgbor (2019) argues that sanctions can reduce the flow of migrants, specifically between senders

3 Frye (2019), in contrast, does not find a rally-around-the-flag effect in a survey experiment conducted in the context of sanctions imposed after Russia’s

illegal annexation of Crimea.

4 As it is common in the social science literature, we use the terms origin and destination country to describe migration flows, and target and sender country

to describe the imposition of sanctions.

5 Connell et al. (2021) study the effect of a potential sender of sanctions being host to a large diaspora from a potential target country. They demonstrate

that diaspora presence is associated with political opposition to imposing sanctions and argue that this is due to policymakers’ fear of migration pressure from
the target state.
6 Chinese and Russian sanctions are merged into a single dummy variable due to the low number of dyad-years with Chinese sanctions in place (653, less

than 1% of all observations in the dataset).

7 Studies on how capital flows respond to sanctions (Besedeš et al., 2017; Biglaiser and Lektzian, 2011; Mirkina, 2018) are a noteworthy exception.

2
J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

and targets by adversely affecting these countries’ relationships.8 Weiner (1992) makes the related argument that sanctions are
a key instrument to curtail unwanted migrant flows towards the sanction-sending country (see also Portela and Charron, 2023).
Accordingly, emigration can be limited by imposing sanctions on states from which major migrant flows originate, thereby, putting
pressure on their governments to reduce these flows. Weiner (1992) even refers to the unusual case where Palestinians as a third
party (i.e., neither the origin nor the destination country of migrants) threatened sanctions against carriers who brought Soviet Jews
to Israel. A more recent example is US President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on all Mexican goods if Mexico did not curb the
flow of migrants to the US southern border. Before sanctions were imposed, Mexico agreed to take adequate measures (Hufbauer
and Jung, 2020). Sanctions do not need to be intended to reduce emigration from the target country. If they successfully target
some of the causes of migration, such as conflict and human rights violations, sanctions can curb migration flows as a side effect.
The imposition of sanctions might lead to reduced emigration even before human rights violations and conflicts end, as long as
citizens believe that sanctions will improve living conditions in the target country in the foreseeable future. Finally, sanctions may
lead to less emigration by depriving citizens of the financial resources needed for international migration.
Summing up our theoretical considerations, we arrive at the following set of opposing hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a. Sanctions increase emigration from the target country.

Hypothesis 1b. Sanctions curtail emigration from the target country.

If the adverse conditions created by sanctions lead to emigration, it can be expected that not all members of society and not all
societies are equally affected. It can, therefore, not be assumed that the development of GDP per capita under sanctions is a precise
metric of the hardship caused for the target population. The economic consequences of sanctions will, for example, be concentrated
in particular sectors and occupations, where jobs might be lost and real wages might fall. And also only parts of society are vulnerable
to a lack of access to critical imported consumption goods, such as medicine. Therefore, the hardship caused by sanctions, which
may motivate emigration, cannot be broken down into a small set of well-defined and empirically operationalizable transmission
channels.
Previous literature on the health and employment effects of sanctions has demonstrated disproportionate adverse effects of
sanctions on women (Demir and Tabrizy, 2022; Gutmann et al., 2021).9 In addition, previous literature on gender differences in
migration has demonstrated that differing migration decisions of men and women – both on the individual level and when aggregated
to the country level – can be traced back to systematic gender-specific incentives (Gutmann et al., 2023a; Neumayer and Plümper,
2021; Ruyssen and Salomone, 2018). This motivates our second hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2. The positive migration effect of sanctions on women is larger than that on men.

Not only are different societies and members of society differently affected by sanctions, but their responses to the hardship
caused may also differ systematically. If the argument by Hirschman (1970) and others that voice and exit are substitutes is taken
seriously, the attractiveness of exit should depend on the costliness of using voice. Exit would then be chosen primarily where the
government’s policy raises the cost of voice. Hence, our third hypothesis is the following:

Hypothesis 3. The positive migration effect of sanctions is larger in countries with less freedom of political expression.

Of course, Hypotheses 2 and 3 are only plausible if Hypothesis 1a is supported by the data. They are, thus, formulated conditional
on sanctions having a positive effect on emigration from the target country.
Hirschman (1978) surveys the historical discussion on and case evidence for the effect of exit by either capital or citizens on
the remaining society. Exit from a state by dissatisfied citizens is not uncommon. But since it can be costly for society if too many
citizens leave too quickly, it must be considered that not all polities allow for an unrestricted exit. The Berlin Wall, for example,
was built in 1961 exactly for that reason — to stop the exodus from the German Democratic Republic to the West. To test our
hypotheses, particularly Hypothesis 3, existing legal restrictions on citizens’ freedom of international movement must be accounted
for, as they may significantly impede exit in response to sanctions. Finally, we also evaluate empirically whether countries targeted
with sanctions increase restrictions on foreign migration (see Section 5).

3. Estimation strategy and data

3.1. Estimation strategy

As migration depends on a variety of economic, political, social, and individual push and pull factors, it is not trivial to estimate
the effect of economic sanctions on emigration (e.g., Gibson and McKenzie, 2011). Moreover, sanctions are typically imposed on
politically unstable and economically vulnerable countries (Gutmann et al., 2021; Jing et al., 2003). Thus, causal effects have to be
carefully identified.

8 However, Cucu and Panon (2023) provide empirical evidence that asylum recognition rates are higher between countries with worse diplomatic relations,

which would incentivize migration.

9 The evidence on how sanctions affect women’s rights, however, is ambiguous (Drury and Peksen, 2014; Gutmann et al., 2020).

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

Following Gutmann et al. (2023b), we apply two estimation strategies, a standard panel DiD model as well an event study
approach. The panel DiD model can be expressed as follows:
∑
5
𝑝𝑜𝑙
𝑠 𝑠 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛
𝑦𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 = 𝛽𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐 𝐷𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑖,𝑡 + 𝛾1 𝑋𝑖,𝑡 + 𝛾2 𝑋𝑖,𝑡−1 + 𝛼𝑖,𝑗 + 𝜏𝑗,𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 (1)
𝑠=1

The dependent variable 𝑦𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 is the log-transformed absolute number of people who migrate from country 𝑖 to country 𝑗 in year
𝑡.10 Our level of observation is the directed dyad- (or directed country pair-) year level. The vector of dummy variables 𝐷𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑖,𝑡 𝑠
11
distinguishes between (i) UN, (ii) joint EU-US (Western multilateral) , (iii) EU unilateral, (iv) US unilateral, and (v) non-Western
sanctions (i.e., imposed by China or Russia). These are our key variables of interest and take the value 1 if sanctions are imposed
against a country 𝑖 in year 𝑡, and 0 otherwise. Sanctions enacted by the UNSC are not counted as EU, US, or non-Western sanctions.12
We implement two sets of fixed effects to account for various unobserved factors influencing international migrant flows. First,
dyad (or country pair) fixed effects 𝛼𝑖,𝑗 absorb various standard control variables, such as distance, a common border, shared
languages, and time-invariant cultural and genetic proximity. In addition, dyad fixed effects nest the less granular origin and
destination fixed effects. Thus, they account for all time-invariant origin and destination country characteristics. Second, destination-
year fixed effects 𝜏𝑗,𝑡 capture the annual political, macroeconomic, and social conditions within destination countries, often referred
to as ‘‘pull factors’’. This means that, for example, migration policy regimes in destination countries are fully accounted for, even
if they change over time. These fixed effects also nest the less granular year fixed effects, which capture all global time trends
in migration and the global political environment. The inclusion of origin-year fixed effects, however, is not feasible if one is
interested in measuring the total emigration effect of sanctions, as all sanctions indicators would be absorbed.13 Instead, we account
for potentially confounding time-varying origin country characteristics – in line with the migration economics literature and the
literature on the effects of international sanctions (e.g., Beine et al., 2019; Giménez-Gómez et al., 2019; Gutmann et al., 2023b)
𝑝𝑜𝑙 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛 represents one-year lagged
– by including a set of economic and political control variables. 𝑋𝑖,𝑡 represents political and 𝑋𝑖,𝑡−1
economic control variables for the origin country, described in detail in Section 3.2. 𝜖𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 is an idiosyncratic error term.
Our second estimation strategy, the event study approach, is used to compare migration during the treatment period with the
trends in migration before and after the imposition of sanctions (Dai et al., 2021; Gutmann et al., 2023b; Schmidheiny and Siegloch,
2023). We examine the pre- and post-trend in migration in the three years before and after each sanction episode. By comparing
these observations to non-sanctioned dyad-years, we can assess whether migration flows systematically increase before sanctions
are imposed. This enables us to separate the impact of sanctions from the factors that led to their imposition. An additional benefit
of the event study design is that it allows us to analyze how the treatment effect evolves throughout the sanction episode, rather
than solely estimating an average treatment effect. The event study specification can be formalized as follows:

∑
3 ∑
11+ ∑
3 ∑
4
𝑠 𝑠
𝑦𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 = 𝛽𝑛𝑜 𝐷𝑛𝑜,𝑖,𝑡 + 𝛽𝑝𝑟𝑒,−𝑙 𝐷𝑝𝑟𝑒,𝑖,𝑡−𝑙 + 𝛽𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑙 𝐷𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑖,𝑡𝑙 + 𝛽𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡,+𝑙 𝐷𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡,𝑖,𝑡+𝑙 + 𝛽𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐 𝐷𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑖,𝑡 (2)
𝑙=2 𝑙=1 𝑙=1 𝑠=1
𝑝𝑜𝑙 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛
+ 𝛾1 𝑋𝑖,𝑡 + 𝛾2 𝑋𝑖,𝑡−1 + 𝛼𝑖,𝑗 + 𝜏𝑗,𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖,𝑗,𝑡
𝑝𝑜𝑙 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛 ), fixed effects (𝛼
The control variables (𝑋𝑖,𝑡 and 𝑋𝑖,𝑡−1 𝑖,𝑗 and 𝜏𝑗,𝑡 ), and the idiosyncratic error term (𝜖𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 ) are defined as in Eq. (1).
The event study indicators, denoted as 𝐷𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑖,𝑡𝑙 , are binary variables that take the value 1 if either a UN or a Western multilateral
(joint EU-US) sanction episode targeting country 𝑖 was active during the 𝑙th consecutive year. To capture the effects of sanctions over
time, we employ individual dummy variables for each of the first ten years in a sanction episode (𝑡1 to 𝑡10). Because longer-lasting
sanctions are rare, we combine all sanction-years after the tenth year of an episode in one dummy variable (𝑡11+).14 𝐷𝑝𝑟𝑒,𝑖,𝑗,𝑡−𝑙 and
𝐷𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡,𝑖,𝑗,𝑡+𝑙 are five dummy variables that identify the years three and two preceding and each of the three years following a sanction
episode. These variables enable us to evaluate the trends in emigration from a sanctioned country before sanctions are imposed and
𝑠
after they are lifted. 𝐷𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑐,𝑖,𝑡 is a vector of controls for other types of sanctions. In event studies on the effect of UN sanctions, the
vector contains joint EU-US, EU only, US only, and non-Western sanctions. In event studies on the effect of Western multilateral
sanctions, the vector contains UN, EU only, US only, and non-Western sanctions. Finally, 𝐷𝑛𝑜,𝑖,𝑡 is a dummy variable identifying
(i.e., coded 1 for) all observations where neither the sanction variables of interest (i.e., dummy variables for either UN sanctions or
Western multilateral sanctions) nor the corresponding pre- and post-trends are coded 1. Hence, the estimated effects of sanctions
(over time) and the pre-/post-trend coefficients are to be interpreted as deviations from the final year before the imposition of
sanctions (𝑡 − 1), that is, the year for which we have omitted the pre-trend dummy from Eq. (2) (cf., Callaway and Sant’Anna, 2021).
Eqs. (1) and (2) are estimated using ordinary least squares and the standard errors are clustered at the dyad level.

10 It is common in the migration literature to measure the dependent variable as a ‘migration rate’. Log-transformation and dyad fixed effects imply that we

also study the effect of sanctions on the relative deviation of migration flows from their dyad-specific conditional means.
11 We use the term ‘‘multilateral’’ here to refer to sanctions imposed by both the EU and the US, but this does not imply that these sanctions were coordinated

between the EU and the US.

12 The three types of Western sanctions are by construction disjunctive. However, Western and non-Western sanctions can coincide.
13 Origin-year fixed effects can be included if one is only interested in sanction-induced migrant flows to specific countries, such as flows to sanction senders.

However, such estimates must be interpreted carefully, as migration flows to countries other than the senders and caused by the same sanctions would be part
of the counterfactual migration trend. We estimate such a model as an extension in Section 4.2.
14 The effects of longer-lasting sanctions over time are disentangled further in Section 4.2.

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

3.2. Data

Our final dataset contains 79,791 observations for which we have complete data on migration, sanctions, and all control variables.
It covers migration flows from 157 origin countries to 32 destination countries (31 of which are OECD members), corresponding to
a total of 4596 dyads, between 1961 and 2018 (see Table OA1 in the Supplementary materials for a list of countries). Our dependent
variables are based on the absolute number of migrants from country 𝑖 to country 𝑗 in year 𝑡. For our baseline specifications, we also
distinguish male from female migrants to evaluate gender differences in the effects of sanctions.15 Our baseline specification studies
migration at the combined extensive and intensive margin and relies on a 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑦𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 + 1)-transformation.16 In addition, we assess the
robustness of our results by estimating a model of only the intensive margin using a 𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑦𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 )-transformation.17 Migration data is
taken from the DEMIG (2015) and OECD (2020) databases.18
Sanctions data is obtained from the Global Sanctions Data Base (GSDB, see Felbermayr et al., 2020; Kirikakha et al., 2021;
Syropoulos et al., 2024). Our empirical analysis focuses on the most active senders: the UN, the US, the EU, Russia, and China.
In total, our dataset covers 3932 dyad-years with UN sanctions in place, 4480 with EU-US joint (or Western multilateral) sanctions,
2034 with EU unilateral sanctions, 8972 with US unilateral sanctions, and 5561 with non-Western (i.e., Chinese or Russian)
sanctions. UN and Western multilateral sanctions naturally occur less frequently, since more parties have to agree on their imposition
— and for UN sanctions unanimous consent of five veto powers is required. Moreover, Wood (2008), Hufbauer et al. (2009)
document that UN sanctions are, on average, less comprehensive than US unilateral or multilateral sanctions.19 Finally, the US
is the most active sender of international sanctions. On average, UN sanctions (/joint EU-US sanctions) are newly introduced after
US unilateral sanctions were already in place for 2.9 (1.3) years. However, only 50 (25.4) percent of newly imposed UN sanctions
(/joint EU-US sanctions) were preceded by US sanctions.20
To account for the economic causes of migration in the origin countries, we control for real GDP per capita (in logs and lagged by
one year due to potential reverse causality). Political and social causes of migration are incorporated through the Polity2 democracy
index (Marshall and Gurr, 2020) and the Human Rights Protection Score by Fariss (2019). Considering these control variables should
reduce omitted variable bias. But since sanctions also affect income, human rights, and democracy, we may at the same time
introduce bias by controlling for mediating variables. We evaluate the robustness of our results to varying the model specification
with regard to control variables in Section 4.2. Moreover, we include the binary variable Freedom of Movement, based on version
14 of the V-Dem dataset (Coppedge et al., 2024).21 To test our third hypothesis, we add a variable measuring freedom of political
expression (Political Expression) and interact it with the indicators for UN sanctions and Western multilateral sanctions.22 Finally,
we control for the occurrence of conflicts and wars based on data by Gleditsch et al. (2002), Davies et al. (2022) and distinguish
between two levels of intensity (minor and war) and three different scopes of conflict (interstate, intrastate without intervention,
and intrastate with intervention).
Table OA2 in the Supplementary materials provides definitions and data sources of all variables. Tables OA3 and OA4 show
descriptive statistics. In general, migration flows are larger if an origin country is subject to sanctions. However, sanctioned countries,
on average, have a lower GDP per capita, are less democratic, show more infringements of human rights, provide less freedom of
political expression, and experience minor conflicts and wars at a much higher frequency. These descriptive statistics underscore
the importance of separating the treatment effect from the selection effect, as the political, social, and economic environment is
considerably worse in sanctioned countries.

15 There is no information on other socio-demographic characteristics of interest, such as education or marital status.
16 We also test for the robustness of our results at the combined extensive and intensive margin by using an inverse hyperbolic sine transformation:
√
𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝑦𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 + 𝑦2𝑖,𝑗,𝑡 + 1) (see Aihounton and Henningsen, 2020; Bartlett, 1947; Chen and Roth, 2024, for alternatives to log-transformation in regression analysis).
17 Depending on the dependent variable (total migration, male migration, or female migration), this robustness test is based on up to 11,000 observations

less than the baseline specification.

18 Many migrants, of course, do not move to these 32 destination countries. However, nonindustrialized countries lacked the statistical capacity to record

migrant inflows by origin country over many decades. Domestic migration is also not recorded and the data does not allow us to distinguish types of migration,
such as legal vs illegal or skilled vs unskilled migration. Finally, this dataset does not cover immigration into sanctioned countries. Using the World Bank’s
(2023) net migration dataset, we explore this issue as an extension. The results for net migration (available on request) are consistent with our findings for
emigration from sanctioned countries.
19 The GSDB does not measure the severity of sanctions, except for trade sanctions. We also explore the difference between types of sanctions. However,

different types (arms, financial, military, trade, travel, and others) often coincide (i.e., sanction episodes are typically of more than one type), which can cause
collinearity problems given that there is only a limited number of sanctions in each category. For instance, most sanctioned observations (UN: 2981; multilateral:
3825) entail financial sanctions. To reach conceptually clear and empirically robust results, we focus in an extension on one main subcategory of sanctions:
those including trade or financial sanctions, which should be most prone to cause economic hardship. Most sanctions include one of the two types (UN: 2981;
multilateral: 3992) and only a small fraction do not (UN: 951; multilateral: 488). Coefficient estimates for trade/financial sanctions are consistent with the results
below for sanctions in general. Estimates for non-trade/non-financial sanctions have to be interpreted cautiously and are available on request.
20 For UN sanctions, the corresponding figures for other senders are as follows. EU: 0.1 years/7.4 percent of cases, Russia: 0.1 years/1.1 percent, China:

0 years/0 percent. Joint EU-US sanctions are, on average, preceded by 1.6 years of EU unilateral sanctions, but only in 25.9 percent of the cases.
21 The variable takes the value 0 if there is no respect for freedom of foreign movement and 1 if freedom of foreign travel and emigration is at least weakly

respected. Lagging all political control variables, all control variables, or none of the control variables by one year leaves our results virtually unchanged
(estimates are available on request).
22 The freedom of political expression variable is based on the standardized first principal component of the following variables from the V-Dem dataset:

freedom of discussion for men, freedom of discussion for women, freedom of academic & cultural expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly.

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

Table 1
Baseline results (Log + 1)
(1) (2) (3)
Total Male Female
migration migration migration
Sanctions
… UN 0.177∗∗∗ 0.169∗∗∗ 0.168∗∗∗
(0.052) (0.053) (0.050)
… Multilateral (EU-US) 0.228∗∗∗ 0.224∗∗∗ 0.238∗∗∗
(0.042) (0.042) (0.043)
… EU only 0.053 0.050 0.052
(0.035) (0.036) (0.035)
… US only −0.005 0.004 −0.009
(0.025) (0.025) (0.024)
… Non-Western 0.034 0.076∗∗∗ 0.013
(0.028) (0.028) (0.027)

lagged 𝑙𝑜𝑔(GDP pc) 0.304∗∗∗ 0.295∗∗∗ 0.318∗∗∗

(0.070) (0.069) (0.072)
Polity2 0.009∗∗∗ 0.006∗ 0.010∗∗∗
(0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
Human Rights −0.123∗∗∗ −0.116∗∗∗ −0.109∗∗∗
(0.016) (0.016) (0.016)
Freedom of Movement −0.031 −0.043 −0.031
(0.055) (0.056) (0.053)

Interstate Conflicts
… Minor 0.020 0.041 −0.010
(0.063) (0.063) (0.066)
… Major −0.203∗ −0.209∗ −0.243∗∗∗
(0.110) (0.115) (0.094)
Internal Conflicts w/o Intervention
… Minor 0.024 0.027 0.037
(0.023) (0.024) (0.023)
… Major −0.010 0.028 −0.025
(0.038) (0.039) (0.038)
Internal Conflicts w/ Intervention
… Minor 0.007 0.036 0.001
(0.045) (0.043) (0.043)
… Major 0.417∗∗∗ 0.460∗∗∗ 0.396∗∗∗
(0.077) (0.078) (0.076)

Observations 79,791 79,791 79,791

R2 0.940 0.930 0.938
Within-R2 0.020 0.018 0.020

Notes: Coefficient estimates of Eq. (1) with different dependent variables. Standard errors in
parentheses are clustered at the dyad level. Models include dyad fixed effects and destination-year
fixed effects. ***/**/* indicates significance at the 1%/5%/10% level.

4. Empirical results

4.1. Baseline results

Average Treatment Effects. Table 1 shows the results of the DiD estimations for different dependent variables at the combined
extensive and intensive margin, that is, after a 𝑙𝑜𝑔 + 1-transformation. UN and Western multilateral sanctions have a significant
positive effect on migration, confirming Hypothesis 1a. On average, UN sanctions increase migration flows from the target country
by roughly 16.8–17.7%, whereas the effect of joint EU-US sanctions amounts to a 22.4–23.8% increase in migration. Concerning
gender differences, we find a slightly, but not significantly, larger effect of Western multilateral sanctions on female migration
(+23.8%) as compared to male migration (+22.4%).23 In contrast, non-Western sanctions only significantly impact male migration
(+7.6%), but not total or female migration. Hence, we find no empirical support for Hypothesis 2. Finally, unilateral EU or US
sanctions do not significantly affect migration flows.
Turning to the control variables, we find positive coefficients for real GDP per capita and democracy, indicating more migration
from economically well-developed democracies to industrialized countries. Moreover, human rights infringements (indicated by a

23 The baseline estimates for UN sanctions and joint EU-US sanctions remain virtually unchanged if we interact the sanction variables with the indicators

for major conflicts (estimates are available on request). Hence, the effects of sanctions on migration are not driven by sanction episodes that coincide with
large-scale conflicts.

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

Fig. 1. Effects of UN and Western Multilateral Sanctions Over Time (Log + 1).
Notes: Effects of sanctions over time (1, 2, …, 11+) alongside pre-trend (−3, −2, −1) and post-trend (+1, +2, +3) according to an estimation of Eq. (2) for different
dependent variables. Standard errors are clustered at the dyad level. Models include control variables (other sanction indicators, lagged 𝑙𝑜𝑔(GDP pc), Polity2,
Human Rights, Freedom of Movement, and six conflict indicators), dyad fixed effects, and destination-year fixed effects. 95% confidence bands are indicated by
whiskers.

negative coefficient) and major internal conflicts with international intervention lead to more emigration, whereas major interstate
conflicts appear to curtail migration flows. Using the coefficient estimates for major internal conflicts with international intervention
(39.6–46.0%) as a point of reference, we find that the effects of UN and Western multilateral sanctions are about half the size of
large-scale civil wars. In conclusion, the migration effects of these sanctions are quantitatively relevant.
We explore the robustness of our findings in Appendix A by repeating the estimations at the combined extensive and intensive
margin using an inverse hyperbolic sine transformation. The corresponding results in Table A.1 are virtually identical to the baseline
estimates. Next, we study migration at the intensive margin and discard all observations without migration flows. The results in
Table A.2 are qualitatively very similar to those in Table 1. If at all, we find larger point estimates at the intensive margin with
20.1–22.6% for UN sanctions and 24.3–26.2% for Western multilateral sanctions. In both cases, the effect on female migration is
slightly (but not significantly) larger than that on male migration. The effect of non-Western sanctions on male migration is no
longer significant. Hence, the intensive margin estimations further support Hypothesis 1a.
Effects of Sanctions over Time. Fig. 1 shows the point estimates and the corresponding 95% confidence bands for UN sanctions
(upper panel) and Western multilateral sanctions (lower panel) during the three years before a sanction episode (−3, −2, −1),
throughout a sanction episode (1, 2, …, 11+), and for the three years after sanctions are lifted (+1, +2, +3). Following Callaway and
Sant’Anna (2021), the effect in the year before the implementation of sanctions (−1) is normalized to 0. Hence, the estimated effects
of sanctions over time and the pre-/post-trend have to be interpreted relative to the final year before sanctions are implemented.
There are no significant pre-trends observable before the imposition of Western multilateral sanctions. In addition, migration
flows return to their pre-treatment (i.e., −1) levels once sanctions are lifted, with even a slight reduction in migration after three
years. In the case of UN sanctions, we observe slow upward pre-trends and some evidence for a decline in migration relative to
pre-treatment levels once sanctions are lifted. However, the effects estimated in the treatment period mark a clear deviation from
any pre-trend, which supports a causal interpretation of the results.
Mirroring the results in Table 1, the impact of UN sanctions on international migration is smaller than that of Western multilateral
sanctions. Nevertheless, the effect is statistically significant during the first six years of a sanction episode (for female migration also
in the case of long-lasting sanctions, but not in year 1). The estimated effect reaches its peak of 29.8–30.9% in year 5 and declines
thereafter. Western multilateral sanctions lead to a gradual increase in migrant flows throughout a sanction episode (with only the
first year not being significant). The effects are particularly pronounced for very long-lasting sanctions (80.0–85.5%), but they also
reach levels of 46.0–49.4% during the first ten years. While the economic effects of sanctions appear to be strongest in the first years
of a sanctions episode (Gutmann et al., 2023b), it is plausible that the effect on migration builds up over the years. Emigration is a
costly strategic decision and is often based more on expectations regarding future living conditions than on the status quo. Doxey

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

(1996), for example, describes the increase in white Rhodesian emigration after their initial false expectation that sanctions against
their country would not be long-lasting. Finally, we do not detect systematic gender differences in both panels of Fig. 1.24
We explore the robustness of our results and repeat the event study estimations while excluding origin countries that were never
subject to UN sanctions or Western multilateral sanctions. Arguably, the social, political, and economic situation in countries that
were subject to sanctions at some point in time is more comparable to the situation of countries in the treatment group. This yields a
more conservative counterfactual, but comes at the cost of reduced estimation efficiency. Figure OA2 in the Supplementary materials
shows the results. Using the restricted control group, we observe slightly larger peak effects of UN sanctions in year 5 (32.6–34.4%)
compared to the baseline results in Fig. 1. For Western multilateral sanctions, the peak effects (39.0%–43.8%) and the effects of
long-lasting sanctions (67.1%–69.5%) are smaller in the robustness test. In general, our findings that Western multilateral sanctions
trigger more emigration than UN sanctions and that there are no systematic gender differences in emigration due to sanctions are
both supported by this robustness test.

4.2. Robustness tests and extensions

Robustness to Mediating Variables. Our baseline specification is conservative in that it controls for lagged GDP per capita,
human rights, and democracy. Indirect effects of sanctions on migration via one of these channels are, therefore, not accounted
for, while the risk of omitted variable bias from these migration determinants is reduced. We evaluate the robustness of our results
towards considering the total (direct plus indirect) effects of sanctions on migration by re-estimating our baseline specification from
Column (1) of Table 1 and leaving out one of the three control variables at a time.
The results in Table OA5 in the Supplementary materials show that excluding the indicator for democracy (Column 4) leaves the
results virtually unchanged. Excluding income per capita (Column 2) slightly reduces the point estimates for UN and multilateral
sanctions. This is in line with the positive estimate for lagged GDP per capita in Column (1) and the detrimental effect of sanctions
on income (Neuenkirch and Neumeier, 2015; Gutmann et al., 2023b). Most striking is the change in coefficient estimates (also for
conflicts) when excluding the indicator for human rights (Column 3). This suggests that the effects of sanctions on migration are
possibly underestimated if we control for human rights. Nevertheless, this extension also underscores the robustness of our results
to different model specifications.
Robustness to Sanctions Objectives. The GSDB records nine types of objectives or reasons for imposing sanctions (democracy,
human rights, destabilize regime, policy change, prevent war, end war, territorial conflict, terrorism, and others) based on
information from official documents. Table OA6 in the Supplementary materials lists the frequency of observations for each sanction
objective and the different senders. It reveals some interesting patterns. Not surprisingly, ending wars is the most common objective
of UN sanctions, followed by preventing war and human rights violations. Multilateral sanctions are particularly often justified with
the target country’s human rights situation and with supporting democracy. US and non-Western sanctions are more likely than
other sanctions to aim at policy changes.
To test whether the measured sanction-induced migration is driven by sanctions imposed with a particular objective, we repeat
the baseline estimations while excluding sanction cases with one objective at a time.25 If excluding sanctions with a particular
objective would fundamentally alter our estimates, this could hint at an omitted variable bias not accounted for by our fixed effects
and control variables. Table OA7 in the Supplementary materials shows the results of this jackknife-style robustness test.
A couple of findings seem worth highlighting. First, the effect of UN sanctions and Western multilateral sanctions remains
significant throughout all specifications (and highly significant in most of them). The only exception is found when excluding
sanctions that aim at ending war, as the significance of the estimates for UN sanctions is less pronounced in this case. Second,
we do not find consistently significant results for other sanction senders.26
Effects of Sanctions Conditional on Income Groups. As another extension, we analyze the effects of sanctions across different
country-income groups.27 We rely on the World Bank classification and merge low and lower-middle-income countries into one
group and upper-middle and high-income countries into another. Table OA8 in the Supplementary materials shows the results of
estimating Eq. (1) for each of the two resulting income groups.
The effects of UN and Western multilateral sanctions are more or less the same across income groups. If at all, the point estimates
are (slightly) larger for high-income countries, but they are also less precisely estimated. The difference in the coefficients for
multilateral sanctions compared to the baseline estimates in Table 1 might be due to the loss of roughly 8000 observations, as the
World Bank classification is only available since 1987.28 Finally, we detect some differences in the effects of unilateral US sanctions
and non-Western sanctions on migrant flows from low-income countries (negative) and high-income countries (positive). There is

24 Figure OA1 in the Supplementary materials shows the corresponding event study plots for up to 20 years of a UN or Western multilateral sanction episode.

The effects of Western multilateral sanctions increase up until their peak in year 18/19 of a sanction episode. The impact of UN sanctions on migration peaks
a second time in year 16 and is particularly pronounced for very long-lasting sanctions. However, the estimates beyond year 10 should be interpreted with
caution, as they are based on few observations.
25 Note that sanction episodes can have multiple objectives.
26 Since this robustness test is based on nine regressions with partially overlapping samples, we refrain from interpreting estimates that are not consistently

significant.
27 We also considered splitting the sample into the Cold War period and the period thereafter. However, due to limited data availability before 1990, this

would leave us with highly unbalanced subsamples of 10,993 (Cold War) and 68,798 (post-Cold War) observations.
28 When we restrict the sample for the baseline estimations in Table 1 to start in 1987, the effect of Western multilateral sanctions shrinks as well.

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

Fig. 2. Effects of UN and Western Multilateral Sanctions Conditional on Freedom of Political Expression (Log + 1).
Notes: Effects of sanctions conditional on freedom of political expression according to an estimation of Eq. (1) for different dependent variables. Standard errors
are clustered at the dyad level. Models include control variables (other sanction indicators, lagged 𝑙𝑜𝑔(GDP pc), Polity2, Human Rights, Freedom of Movement,
Political Expression, and six conflict indicators), dyad fixed effects, and destination-year fixed effects. 95% confidence bands are indicated by dark-gray shaded
areas. Light-gray vertical bars illustrate the full distribution of political expression under UN and Western multilateral sanctions. See also Table OA9 in the
Supplementary materials.

no apparent theoretical justification for these subsample effects, which cancel each other out in the full sample. While it is plausible
that sanctions suppress emigration only in low-income countries by depriving regular citizens of the resources needed for migration
– especially to the Global North – it is unclear why that would not equally apply to multilateral and UN sanctions. Yet, these more
powerful sanctions have virtually the same effect in low- and high-income countries.
Effects of Sanctions Conditional on Freedom of Political Expression. To test Hypothesis 3, we extend Eq. (1) with a variable
measuring freedom of political expression and two interactions of this variable with the indicators for UN sanctions and Western
multilateral sanctions.
Table OA9 in the Supplementary materials shows the results. Fig. 2 provides a straightforward visualization of the marginal
effects of sanctions on international migration, conditional on the level of freedom of political expression in the target country. For
both interactions, the estimated effects are visualized over the whole range of observed freedom of political expression values of
target countries, although the estimated effect is supported by very little data at the top end of the distribution.
The effect of UN sanctions on migration depends only weakly on the freedom of political expression, which is underlined by the
non-significance of the negative interaction terms (see Table OA9 in the Supplementary materials). In contrast, the effect of Western
multilateral sanctions is strongly moderated and shrinks by 20%–22% with each additional standard deviation in the indicator for
freedom of political expression.29 Hence, we find, in line with Hypothesis 3, that increased migration (i.e., exit) in response to
sanctions only occurs if freedom of political expression is limited (i.e., voice).
Target-Sender Migration Flows. As a final extension, we estimate Eq. (1) with added origin-year fixed effects and study
migration flows specifically from target to sender countries. Our sanctions indicators are now recoded to take the value 1 only
for dyad-years from a sanction target to a sanction sender.30 In this research design, effects of UN sanctions cannot be estimated,
as all countries are bound by UN sanctions and the corresponding sanctions indicator would be absorbed by the origin-year fixed
effects. Chinese and Russian (i.e., non-Western) sanctions also cannot be studied here because our dataset does not cover bilateral
migration flows to these countries.
We are now estimating whether sanctions lead to increased migration from the target to the sender country, which is not our
research question but addresses an interesting complementary question. For the target country, the destination of their emigrating

29 A significant negative effect of Western multilateral sanctions on migration is estimated for freedom of political expression larger than 0.94–1.11, that is,

for less than 0.5% of the observations under Western multilateral sanctions. Thus, it seems more plausible to assume a null effect on migration for sanction
targets with high freedom of political expression.
30 Note that conventional sanctions indicators, as they are used throughout the sanctions literature and as they are used in the rest of the paper, would be

absorbed by the origin-year fixed effects. In other words, once we include origin-year fixed effects, we can only compare migration flows from the target country
to different destination countries with each other.

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

citizens will generally not matter much. But it may be of great relevance to the sanction sender, if sanctioning a country may cause a
wave of migrants from that country to arrive at its border. In other words, we are testing the argument referred to in footnote 5, but
based on realized migration flows and not focused on the political decision to impose sanctions given expectations about migration
flows. Finally, it is important to stress that our estimates do not indicate whether migrant flows from sanction target to sanction
sender change, but whether they change relative to migrant flows to other (non-sender) destination countries. This is because flows
from the target to other countries than the sender are now due to the use of ‘‘dyadic sanctions’’ part of the counterfactual.
The results in Table OA10 in the Supplementary materials indicate that multilateral Western and unilateral EU sanctions lead to
more migration to the respective sender countries than to other industrialized countries. This implies that particularly EU countries
have to bear the costs of their sanctions in terms of increased immigration pressure, whereas the United States do not pay the same
price.

5. Conclusion

We conduct the first statistical analysis of how sanctions affect international migrant flows originating from target countries. We
apply two estimation strategies, a panel difference-in-differences model and an event study approach. Our dataset includes 79,791
dyad-year observations, reflecting migration flows from 157 origin countries to 32 destination countries between 1961 and 2018.
Our key findings suggest that UN and Western multilateral sanctions have a significant positive effect on migration. Emigration
flows increase, on average, by 17%–18% under UN sanctions and by 22%–24% under Western multilateral sanctions. Our event
study results of Western multilateral sanctions imply a gradual increase in emigration throughout a sanction episode with a peak
effect of 80%–86% for long-lasting sanctions (relative to the final year before sanctions are imposed). The impact of UN sanctions on
international migration is smaller, with a peak effect of 30%–31%, and less persistent. Our findings can be interpreted as causal since
the increase in emigration marks a significant deviation from the pre-trend. In addition, migration flows return to their pre-sanction
level once sanctions are lifted. Our results are not indicative of gender differences in the effects of sanctions on migration. This
finding contrasts with previous research demonstrating that women are disproportionately affected by sanctions (Demir and Tabrizy,
2022; Gutmann et al., 2021) and migration is partially driven by gender-specific incentives (Gutmann et al., 2023a; Neumayer and
Plümper, 2021; Ruyssen and Salomone, 2018).
The positive migration effect, particularly that for Western multilateral sanctions, is driven by countries with limited freedom of
political expression. This is in line with emigration serving as a substitute for voicing dissent, especially where the latter is costly
(see also Hirschman, 1970). The fact that sanctions lead dissatisfied citizens to emigrate may help to reconcile arguments in the
literature claiming that sanctions can cause both protest (Grauvogel et al., 2017; Liou et al., 2021) and rally-around-the-flag effects
(Eichenberger and Stadelmann, 2022; Gold et al., 2024; Grauvogel and von Soest, 2014; Seitz and Zazzaro, 2020). Especially in
illiberal target countries, where protest and free speech are suppressed, those opposed to the regime may emigrate during sanctions,
allowing for a consolidation of regime support among the remaining population.
Descriptive statistics support that countries under sanctions tend to reduce their citizens’ freedom of foreign movement. Figure
OA3 in the Supplementary materials shows that during the second to fifth year of a sanctions episode roughly 7%–8% of the countries
impose restrictions on the freedom to emigrate. These governments must feel harmed or at least threatened by emigration. Cuba’s
requirement for a special permit before medical doctors can travel abroad, introduced in 2015, is an example of such a restriction.
Cuba’s government complained at the time that its health services were seriously affected by the emigration of doctors and it
blamed the US for encouraging emigration from Cuba for political reasons.31 Its medical sector earns Cuba much needed foreign
currency after it has endured decades of US economic sanctions. Nevertheless, omitting the migration regulation indicator from our
model specification does not change our estimated emigration effect of sanctions, which suggests that while sanctioned governments
might want to limit emigration, we do not find evidence that they are successful in this effort (see Table OA11 in the Supplementary
materials).
For sanction senders, our results imply a potential unintended consequence of using sanctions to settle international disputes.
Sanctions are not only potentially harmful to the sender country’s economy, but they can also trigger international migration waves
that may cause additional economic and political costs for the sender (see also Connell et al., 2021).
An important limitation of cross-country research on migration is the availability of bilateral migration data for only a limited
number of destination countries. Therefore, our results are reflective of migration to industrialized countries (the only non-OECD
member being South Africa), but they might not automatically generalize to South-South migration. Case studies of countries
targeted by economic sanctions that would also consider emigration to non-OECD countries are, thus, necessary to evaluate the
external validity of our results.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

31 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34979512.

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J. Gutmann et al. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 226 (2024) 106709

Table A.1
Baseline results (Inverse hyperbolic sine transformation).
(1) (2) (3)
Total Male Female
migration migration migration
Sanctions
… UN 0.191∗∗∗ 0.185∗∗∗ 0.175∗∗∗
(0.053) (0.055) (0.052)
… Multilateral (EU-US) 0.228∗∗∗ 0.227∗∗∗ 0.240∗∗∗
(0.043) (0.044) (0.044)
… EU only 0.056 0.052 0.054
(0.037) (0.038) (0.037)
… US only −0.006 0.005 −0.009
(0.026) (0.026) (0.025)
… Non-Western 0.023 0.070∗∗ 0.001
(0.029) (0.029) (0.029)

Observations 79,791 79,791 79,791

R2 0.937 0.926 0.934
Within-R2 0.018 0.016 0.018

Notes: Coefficient estimates of Eq. (1) and different dependent variables. Standard errors
in parentheses are clustered at the dyad level. Models include control variables (lagged
𝑙𝑜𝑔(GDP pc), Polity2, Human Rights, Freedom of Movement, and six conflict indicators;
coefficient estimates are available on request), dyad fixed effects, and destination-year
fixed effects. ***/**/* indicates significance at the 1%/5%/10% level.

Table A.2
Baseline results (Log).
(1) (2) (3)
Total Male Female
migration migration migration
Sanctions
… UN 0.201∗∗∗ 0.203∗∗∗ 0.226∗∗∗
(0.057) (0.060) (0.058)
… Multilateral (EU-US) 0.243∗∗∗ 0.247∗∗∗ 0.262∗∗∗
(0.046) (0.048) (0.050)
… EU only 0.049 0.045 0.059
(0.039) (0.040) (0.040)
… US only −0.004 0.006 −0.012
(0.026) (0.028) (0.026)
… Non-Western 0.008 0.040 −0.022
(0.027) (0.029) (0.028)

Observations 72,267 69,106 68,527

R2 0.931 0.918 0.926
Within-R2 0.022 0.020 0.024

Notes: Coefficient estimates of Eq. (1) and different dependent variables. Standard errors
in parentheses are clustered at the dyad level. Models include control variables (lagged
𝑙𝑜𝑔(GDP pc), Polity2, Human Rights, Freedom of Movement, and six conflict indicators;
coefficient estimates are available on request), dyad fixed effects, and destination-year
fixed effects. ***/**/* indicates significance at the 1%/5%/10% level.

Appendix A

See Tables A.1 and A.2.

Appendix B. Supplementary materials

Supplementary material including a thorough data description and additional results can be found online at: https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.jebo.2024.106709.

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