We invite you to join the upcoming economics seminar series “Under Pressure? Forced Migration and Public Health”
The seminar will be delivered by David Zuchowski, Assistant Professor at the University of Valencia and Research Fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO).
The event will take place online on February 10, 2026, starting at 1:00 PM.
Large forced migration shocks can place pressure on local public services, especially in developing countries with limited fiscal and institutional capacity. This paper examines the impact of a large and sudden refugee inflow on local health outcomes and the public finance response to such a shock. We focus on the inflow of Venezuelan refugees in Brazil, a setting characterized by full and free access to the host country’s decentralized, universal healthcare system. For identification, we exploit cross-municipality variation in refugee exposure and use distance to the country’s only official border crossing with Venezuela as an instrument. We find evidence of a deterioration in local health outcomes in municipalities with stronger exposure to the refugee inflow.
We also find that healthcare spending does not keep pace with the rise in demand in affected municipalities. These patterns reflect both the poor health of incoming refugees and congestion in the healthcare system amid limited local fiscal capacity. Affected municipalities largely finance the increase in health spending using their own revenues, diverting resources from other sectors, primarily education. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of stronger national support to help decentralized universal health systems withstand large and geographically concentrated migration shocks.
Join the event via this link. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain deeper insights into one of the most pressing global challenges at the intersection of migration, conflict, and public health. Join the lecture, take part in the discussion, and expand your perspective on how migration reshapes societies and labor markets.