Reproducibility package for Forcibly Displaced Populations: Lessons from the Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research, 2010–2026

By the end of 2025, nearly 118 million people were forcibly displaced due to conflict, violence, climate change, and human rights violations. Today, development, humanitarian, and academic institutions agree on the necessity of creating solutions that facilitate the economic self-reliance of these populations. In fact, the UN Refugee Agency has set a target to support 50 percent of the world’s aid reliant refugees in low- and middle-income countries, nearly 8 million people, to move beyond aid through greater self-reliance by 2035. The remaining challenge is to generate evidence on how to do it. This VoxDevLit synthesizes quantitative research conducted between 2010 and 2026, focusing on studies that use experimental or quasi-experimental methods to examine (1) the impacts of forced displacement on host communities and (2) the effectiveness of policies designed to support both forcibly displaced populations and their hosts, with a strong focus on policies that can facilitate refugees’ self-reliance.

Key insights from this body of work indicate that displaced populations have, on average, neutral to positive effects on economic outcomes, although informal workers and other migrants may initially face challenges, especially if their skills are close substitutes for those of the displaced populations.