Refugee Business Development and Social Cohesion in a Humanitarian Setting

Immigrants and refugees often display higher business ownership rates than the host population, and have the potential to increase overall economic productivity given they bring new skills, networks and backgrounds. However, there is a lack of interaction between hosts and new community members preventing them from starting mutually beneficial economic activities. This project aims to understand the impact of reducing networking frictions between refugee Syrian and native Turkish business owners through participation in a program, offered by NGO Building Markets, which enables information exchange and facilitates the formation of business partnerships. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions, and which factors such as ethnic identity, communication, and firm attributes, affect inter-ethnic network formation.