The Political Economy of Refugee Migration
Abstract
This article examines the driving forces of the magnitude, composition and duration of refugee movements caused by conflict and persecution. The decision to seek temporary or permanent refuge in the region of origin or in a more distant asylum destination is based on inter-temporal optimization. We find that asylum seeking in Western countries is rather a phenomenon of comparatively less persecuted people. In an attempt to reduce their respective asylum burdens, Western countries and host countries in the region of origin are likely to end up in a race to the bottom of restrictive asylum policies. As an alternative, this study shows that proactive refugee-related aid transfers are, under certain circumstances, an effective instrument to relieve Western countries from asylum pressure.Download Info
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Paper provided by Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg in its series Discussion Paper Series with number 7.Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: Jan 2009
Date of revision: Jan 2009
Handle: RePEc:fre:wpaper:7
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Keywords: Refugee Movements; Asylum Policy; Foreign Aid;This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-01-17 (All new papers)
- NEP-DEV-2009-01-17 (Development)
- NEP-MIG-2009-01-17 (Economics of Human Migration)
- NEP-POL-2009-01-17 (Positive Political Economics)
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