Sanctions mainly affect poorer people in target countries: Study

GENEVA

Economic sanctions generate high costs, especially for poorer populations in target countries, a study published Tuesday by the Munich-based Ifo Institute shows.

According to the study, sanctions by the United Nations caused growth in sanctioned countries to decline by 2% annually. Extrapolated over 10 years, this equates to a 25% drop in per capita economic output.

Unilateral sanctions by the US led to an annual decline in growth of just under 1% in the countries affected. Over the long term, this equates to a 13% collapse in per capita economic output, according to the study.

"Economic sanctions regularly hit the part of the population in sanctioned countries that live in or near poverty the hardest," Florian Neumeier, head of the Ifo Fiscal and Financial Policy Research Group, wrote on the institute's website.

He added: "This has been the case in the past, especially in the case of U.S. sanctions. Studies show, for example, that as a result of the sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012, it was mainly the young, uneducated population in the country that suffered."

The study's figures are based on evaluations of 160 countries. Of these, 67 were affected by economic sanctions in the period from 1976 to 2012.

With regard to the sanctions imposed on Russia, Neumeier wrote: "In the past, sanctions were mostly imposed on smaller economies. Therefore, we cannot deduce from the analyses how the current sanctions affect a large economy like Russia."

Further, the study's creators found that in poorer countries, economic sanctions also led to lower life expectancy among the population.

Sanctions by the United Nations reduced the life expectancy of the population by an average of 1.2 to 1.4 years, according to the study. Sanctions by the United States reduced life expectancy by just under half a year.

Moreover, according to the data, women are more affected by the imposition of sanctions than men.