Ahmet Akbiyik (Harvard University): He is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Economy and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, with his research primarily centered on migration, social cohesion, and the role of social media in shaping intergroup relations. His work is supported by affiliations with The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and The Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), and he has received grants from J-PAL at MIT and The Stone Program at Harvard.
A key challenge for countries with large refugee populations is to establish policies that help refugees while ensuring that host country nationals do not resent them. International aid may mitigate tensions between host country nationals and large refugee populations by fostering more altruistic attitudes and policies. Based on an online panel survey in Turkey, we examine the impact of different aid types—cash transfers, vocational training, and social cohesion programs—on citizen policy preferences and behaviors towards refugees. An embedded experiment explores how these effects vary by funding source (host government vs. international donor) and the framing of aid (supporting the local economy vs. refugee populations). We find that these outcomes are primarily influenced by economic concerns, suggesting that aid aimed at enhancing refugee self-sufficiency is viewed more favorably. This insight underscores the importance of strategically designed international aid programs to improve refugee integration and foster positive relations between refugees and nationals.