Effects of Immigrants on Non-host Regions: Evidence from the Syrian Refugees in Turkey

Author: Ahmet Gulek (Stanford)
Posted: 18 November 2025

Abstract

I study how local immigration shocks impact labor markets and firms across the economy through production networks. Using Turkey's Syrian refugee crisis and firm-level trade network data, I show that firms buying from host regions demand more labor, while those selling to host regions increase sales. These spillovers depend critically on network centrality: a 1% labor supply increase in Istanbul decreases local real wages by 0.56% while increasing non-host wages by 0.38%. For non-central regions, identical shocks reduce local wages by 1% with negligible spillovers. Network position thus determines whether immigration only lowers local wages or also generates economy-wide gains.
JEL codes: F16, F22, J15, J23, J61
Keywords: Immigration, trade, production network