On 17 March 2012, SWIFT disconnected sanctioned Iranian financial institutions from its global financial messaging network, constraining Iran’s ability to settle cross-border transactions. Using detailed Iranian trade data, we show that the disconnection was followed by a decline of roughly 50 percent in both imports and exports, affecting nearly all manufacturing sectors and reducing both trade volumes and the number of traded products.
- Speaker
- Date
- Monday 15 Jun 2026, 11:30 - 12:30
- Type
- Seminar
- Room
- 2.20
- Building
- Langeveld Building
We then combine this trade shock with Iranian micro-data on workers to identify its local labor market consequences. Shahrestans (counties) specialised in export-oriented and import-reliant industries experienced substantial employment losses between 2011 and 2015, while regions specialised in import-competing industries recorded no offsetting employment gains.
We find no evidence of significant relative wage adjustment across regions. Finally, we show that export-oriented shahrestans subsequently experienced significantly more protests during 2016-2018.
Registration
To participate, please send an email to: ae-secr@ese.eur.nl
