Macroeconomic volatility and anti‐refugee violence in developing countries: Evidence from commodity price shocks

I investigate the effect of macroeconomic (output) volatility on anti‐refugee violence in developing countries. Opportunity cost, rapacity, and state capacity theories predict ambiguous effects. For causal inference I leverage output volatility caused by plausibly exogenous commodity price shocks. I find that adverse commodity price shocks increase both violence of natives against refugees and violence between refugees. My results suggest that anti‐refugee violence increases during recessions and decreases during economic booms.