I was curious whether the presence of humanitarian aid in conflict situations makes an impact. In period 1, humanitarian aid and the interaction of conflict and humanitarian aid were not statistically significant. In period 2, both are statistically significant, but show different relationships with migrant stock. Humanitarian aid in a conflict zone increases migrant stock in destination countries by 0.094 percent given a one percent increase in aid. In conflict zones, which are defined to have more than 25 battleground deaths and the state is a counterparty, it decreases migration by 0.092 percent — an opposite effect. In period 1, there were 1773 conflicts during this period, whereas in period 2, there were 361 conflicts. Donor countries gave a total of $4.4 bn of humanitarian aid in period 1, whereas in period 2 they gave $6.6 bn of aid and there were less conflicts. Just an indicator, assuming donors only gave humanitarian aid to conflict zones and donated aid evenly, in period 1 each conflict received roughly $2.48m in aid whereas in period 2 each conflict received almost $18.31mm in aid. Of course, equal distribution of aid is an oversimplifying assumption to have and this does not reflect the severity of conflict, but the existence of conflict. I suspect the differences in geopolitical events in these two periods may explain the relationships but cannot conclude from this data analysis. I suspect that humanitarian aid reduces the cost of migration in non-monetary ways and increases migration. Figure 1 shows that refugees, the subset of migrants that receive the most humanitarian aid, move the least distances to destination countries. Their needs and preferences are more about safety than economic opportunity, unlike high-skilled emigrants (World Bank 2018)
Humanitarian aid like food, emergency response and reconstruction relief decreases the short-term cost of rebuilding after conflict and reduces the cost of migration. In other words, if migrants are provided with basic services and care during instability, then they can pursue safety and a better life elsewhere. In connection with this finding, food aid is estimated to be statistically significant and inversely related to migrant stock in period 1 -- further supporting the hypothesis that aid decreases the cost of migration. In period 2, however, food aid is not statistically significant. This shows that aid can have differing effects on migration depending on factors like time, origin, destination and other factors that may not be shown in my analysis.