Always Affecting the Wrong People? The Impact of US Sanctions on Poverty

In this paper, we analyze the effect of US economic sanctions on the target countries’ poverty gap during the period 1978–2011. Econometrically, we employ a nearest neighbor matching approach to account for differences in the countries’ economic and political environment and the likelihood of being...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:MAGKS - Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics (Band 10-2015)
Main Authors: Neuenkirch, Matthias, Neumeier, Florian
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Philipps-Universität Marburg 2015
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Online Access:PDF Full Text
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Summary:In this paper, we analyze the effect of US economic sanctions on the target countries’ poverty gap during the period 1978–2011. Econometrically, we employ a nearest neighbor matching approach to account for differences in the countries’ economic and political environment and the likelihood of being exposed to US sanctions. Our results indicate that US sanctions are indeed affecting the wrong people as we observe a 2.3–5.1 percentage points (pp) larger poverty gap in sanctioned countries compared to their nearest neighbors. Severe sanctions, such as fuel embargoes, trade restrictions, the freezing of assets, or embargoes on most or all economic activity are particularly detrimental and lead to an increase in the poverty gap by 6.1–7.4 pp.
Physical Description:18 Pages
ISSN:1867-3678
DOI:10.17192/es2024.0372