With economic sanctions imposed by the UN, per capita economic output collapses sharply (Tehran 2016)
Photo: REUTERS/TIMA
According to a study, economic sanctions cause high damage in the target countries, especially for the poorer population. Sanctions by the United Nations (UN) lead to a decline in growth in the affected countries of two percentage points annually, as the Munich-based Ifo Institute announced in its study. Extrapolated over ten years, this is equivalent to a 25 percent slump in per capita economic output.
Unilateral sanctions by the US lead to an annual decline in growth of almost one percentage point. In the long term, this corresponds to a 13 percent slump in the output of the economy per capita.
"Economic sanctions regularly hit the part of the population in the sanctioned countries hardest that lives in or near poverty," said Florian Neumeier, head of the Ifo Tax and Fiscal Policy Research Group. "In the past, this was mainly the case with US sanctions. Studies showed, for example, that the sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012 mainly affected the young, uneducated population in rural areas."
The study is based on evaluations of 160 countries. Of these, 67 were affected by economic sanctions in the period from 1976 to 2012. "In the past, sanctions were mostly imposed on smaller economies," Neumeier said. "Therefore, we cannot deduce from the analyses how the current sanctions will affect a large economy like Russia."
In poorer countries, sanctions also lead to a lower life expectancy of the population. With such measures by the UN, the life expectancy of the population is reduced by an average of 1.2 to 1.4 years, it said.
In the case of sanctions by the USA, life expectancy will be reduced by almost half a year. "The distinction between the life expectancy of men and women also shows that women are more affected by the imposition of sanctions," Neumeier said.
jso/Reuters