2025/05/06 by Lidia Ceriani, Paolo Verme, Ceriani, Lidia +1
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Agricultural risk and resilience #Economic Policies and Impacts #FOS: Economics and business #General Economics (econ.GN) #Politics, Economics, and Education Policy
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2505.03405
openalex publication_date 2025/05/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Despite the growing numbers of forcibly displaced persons worldwide, many people living under conflict choose not to flee. Individuals face two lotteries - staying or leaving - characterized by two distributions of potential outcomes. This paper proposes to model the choice between these two lotteries using quantile maximization as opposed to expected utility theory. The paper posits that risk-averse individuals aim at minimizing losses by choosing the lottery with the best outcome at the lower end of the distribution, whereas risk-tolerant individuals aim at maximizing gains by choosing the lottery with the best outcome at the higher end of the distribution. Using a rich set of household and conflict panel data from Nigeria, the paper finds that risk-tolerant individuals have a significant preference for staying and risk-averse individuals have a significant preference for fleeing, in line with the predictions of the quantile maximization model. These findings are in contrast to findings on economic migrants, and call for separate policies toward economic and forced migrants.