The Economics of International Refugee Law

Abstract

We model the current system of refugee protection as a contract that bound states to provide a more efficient level of the public good of refugee protection. We show how the screening problem caused by economic migration has strengthened states' incentives to shade on their obligations under the 1951 Convention, resulting in more refoulement of refugees to their place of persecution. We also model reform schemes in which wealthy states pay poorer states to host refugees. A system that transfers refugee claimants from wealthy states to poorer states could ameliorate the screening problem by inducing self-selection among refugee claimants but would also create negative externalities for third countries. We argue that reforms in which wealthy states paid poorer states to resettle refugees from other poorer states would be more efficient than current refugee policies that focus on providing aid in refugee camps and resettling refugees from camps to wealthy states.

Self-Confirming Immigration Policy

“…The crucial di¤erence with respect to the policy problem illustrated in Section 2 is that here the migratory restrictions chosen by country H to reach that combination, H ( ), also depend on H , that is, on the pool of high-skill foreign workers that the policy maker expects will target H. 9 Denoting the welfare function as …”

Refugee resettlement, redistribution and growth

“…Next, the participating states would be able to trade their quotas by paying others to fulfill their obligations. Bubb et al (2011) supplemented this system of bilateral exchange with a screening device to separate refugees from economic migrants. Later on, Fernandez-Huertas Moraga and Rapoport (2014) proposed a multilateral system of tradable immigration quotas with a main application to the resettlement of long-standing refugees.…”

Optimal discretion in asylum lawmaking

“…There has been much debate within and between countries as to which asylum laws should be adopted and who should decide on them 6 .…”

“…5 See for example http://www.ecre.org/topics/dublin ii. 6 See for example dpa (2006), European Parliament (2005), Zimmermann and Tumlin (1999). 7 See European Commission 2007.…”