Often diplomatic and economic in nature, sanctions are designed to induce a change in policy or behavior of the target nation by imposing financial hardships and isolation. They can be imposed in a variety of ways and can take on different forms such as trade restrictions, asset freezes, or even the banning of foreign travel to a country or region. They are commonly used against countries that commit human rights violations, support terrorism, or engage in other offensive acts.
The popularity of economic sanctions is partly due to their perceived proportional response to a foreign challenge, and they can signal a desire on the part of an administration to pursue a specific goal. They also present a less expensive alternative to military intervention, and their visibility on the news can stimulate public support and interest.
However, sanctions are costly for American businesses, farmers, and workers, costing billions in lost sales and forfeited opportunities every year. And they are difficult to measure as a result of their complexity and the fact that their costs do not show up in government budget tables.
On the labor market side, there are several studies examining the impact of sanctions, but these are largely confined to reviews or meta-analyses of active labour market policies. Moreover, most of these do not distinguish between different types of sanctions and rely on period or policy dummy indicators to identify the effect of sanctioning measures. They thus do not allow identification of the unique effects of sanctions on job-search outcomes.
About the Author
