Date of Award

6-2023

Document Type

Union College Only

Department

Economics

Second Department

Russian and East European Studies

First Advisor

Alicia Dang

Second Advisor

Kristin Bisdoshi

Language

English

Keywords

"Migration" "Migrants" "Influx" "Russian" "Caucasus" "Central Asia" "cost of living" "Ukraine" "Difference in Difference"

Abstract

Following the Russian aggression into the Ukraine in 2022, a large number of Russian citizens temporarily emigrated to avoid being trapped in Russia as the conditions worsened and the threat of the draft loomed. Many migrants are of middle to upper income and their movement is concentrated into urban areas of the various nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia. There have been reports of more than 350,000 Russian citizens flying into Armenia's Zvartnots airport alone in the first six months of 2022. Hundreds of thousands also flew into countries like Georgia, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. All of these countries have relatively small developing economies and their ability to accommodate the new immigrants is limited. This paper analyzes the impact the increase in the average rent costs as a result of the influx of the high income migrants. This is shown through a simple difference in difference model, similar to the work of Albert Saiz (2003) in his analysis of the housing shock in Miami due to the influx of low income migrants. The results of the paper indicate that the migrants had a significant and positive relationship with the average cost of short term housing in the impacted regions of Tbilisi, Batumi, Yerevan, Dilijan, Almaty, Toshkent and Ulaanbaatar during the period when the treatment is deemed to have been experienced. As the migrants are temporary, their departure threatens the economies of these affected countries as the cost of living increases in tandem with poverty and other concerning statistics.

Download
Off-Campus Download

Share

COinS
 

Rights Statement

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted.