Crisis and Capital: The Impact of European Union Development Funding on Migration Influxes Over Time

Abstract

In recent years, the European Union has seen a sharp increase in the number of migrants attempting to enter the EU. Recently, the EU has promoted and adopted various policies of disbursing development funding in an effort to curb migration rates from the developing world. In this thesis, I attempt to evaluate the relationship between EU development aid and migration flows over time. The results in the present study indicate that, though the disbursement of EU development funding is associated with decreased emigration rates in the year after the initial disbursement first occurs, over time, this relationship fails to be statistically significant. Furthermore, my analysis shows that, after enough time passes, a significant positive relationship between the quantity of EU funding initially disbursed to a particular nation and the number of individuals attempting to migrate from that nation to the EU develops. This potentially suggests that development funding does not offer a long-term solution to the migrant crisis currently facing the EU- moreover, it may actually relate to increases in migration over time.