Diversity without Adversity? Social Tie Formation and Identity-based Bias towards Refugees

Since the outbreak of the Mediterranean refugee crisis more than 20 million refugees are under UNHCR mandate. It is an open question whether ethnic or religious identity proximity are the most important determinants of refugee integration and whether proactive effort from the part of refugees to form social connections with natives can help overcome ethnic, religious and cultural barriers. Turkey, a host of the world’s largest Syrian refugee population the vast majority of whom lives outside refugee camps and among natives, faces significant challenges in integrating of refugees, despite being itself a country sharing common religious and historic background. Given the presence of more than half million stateless refugee-born children, identifying the drivers of successful socio-economic and political integration matters for the design of effective integration policies.

Konstantinos Matakos is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer in the UK) of Economics in the Department of Political Economy at King's College London. Dr. Matakos's primary research fields are Political Economy, Positive Political Science, Public Economics and Applied Microeconomics. He is particularly interested in the political economy of redistribution and inequality, the politics of identity and race, the design of electoral institutions and their effects on polarization, electoral competition and participation, machine politics and corruption, electoral behavior and formal models of elections.