Economics of Palestinian return migration

Middle East Report

Volumn , Issue 212, 1999, Pages 8-9

  Sayre, Ward ^a   Olmsted, Jennifer ^b  

^a KENYON COLLEGE   (United States)

^b Economic Research Service   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 10644267040     PISSN: 08992851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3012905     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Developing The Occupied Territories: An Investment in Peace, Vol. 2, The Economy (Washington, DC:The World Bank, Sept. 1993), p. 10.
2. United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO), UNSCO Report on Economic and Social Conditions in the West Bank and Gaza (Jerusalem: UNSCO, Spring 1998), http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/mepp/unsco/unfront.html.
3. These calculations are by the authors using the Territories Labor Force Survey data collected by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
4. Radwaan Shaban, "Living Standards in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," working paper, MAS Study Paper No. 14-0017 (Ramallah: Economic Monitoring Unit of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) August, 1997) reports per capita GDP of $883 and $1551 in 1995 for Gaza and the West Bank, a decline of 8.4 and 19.7 per cent respectively during this period, http://www.palecon.org/masdir/publications/livingstandards.html
5. For an economic critique of the Oslo accords, see Jennifer Olmsted, "Thwarting Palestinian Development," Middle East Report 201 (October-December, 1996), pp. 11-13.
6. Michele Chabin, "An Uneasy Homecoming" (Jerusalem Post, July 21, 1998, p. 11), states that official estimates of legal returnees range from 40,000 to 50,000, with unofficially repatriated returnees estimated at no more than 50,000. Abbas Shiblak of the Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Centre (Shaml) reports an estimate of 60,000 in the preface to Reintegration of the Palestinian Returnees, Monograph #6, (Bethlehem: Shaml Publication, 1997). In the same publication, a discussion paper by Jill Tansley titled "Adaptation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip" cites a figure of 52,000 as of 1997. For Tansley and Shiblak see http://www.shaml.org/publications/mono6.htm.
7. Michele Chabin, "An Uneasy Homecoming" (Jerusalem Post, July 21, 1998, p. 11), states that official estimates of legal returnees range from 40,000 to 50,000, with unofficially repatriated returnees estimated at no more than 50,000. Abbas Shiblak of the Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Centre (Shaml) reports an estimate of 60,000 in the preface to Reintegration of the Palestinian Returnees, Monograph #6, (Bethlehem: Shaml Publication, 1997). In the same publication, a discussion paper by Jill Tansley titled "Adaptation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip" cites a figure of 52,000 as of 1997. For Tansley and Shiblak see http://www.shaml.org/publications/mono6.htm.
8. The use of the term "returnee" is somewhat problematic, since some of these Palestinians never did live in Palestine, having been born in the Diaspora. Still, the terms "returnee" and "local" will be used to identify those who have recently "returned" based on the Oslo accords from those who have been residents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for a longer period of time.
9. "Adaptation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," op. cit.
10. UNSCO Report on Economic and Social Conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, op. cit.
11. Ibid. These estimates do not include the underemployed, i.e. people who work less hours than they would like.
12. Palestinians Souring on Arafat's Leadership," (Toronto Star, April 27, 1999).