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Managing Migration through Quotas: An Option-theory Perspective

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Listed:
  • Moretto, Michele
  • Vergalli, Sergio

Abstract

Recent European Legislation on immigration has revealed a particular paradox on migration policies. On the one hand, the trend of recent legislation points to the increasing closure of frontiers (OECD 1999, 2001,2004), also by using immigration quotas. On the other hand, there is an increase of regularization, i.e., European policies are becoming less tight. Our aim here is to study these counterbalanced and opposite policies in European immigration legislation in a unified framework . To do this, we have used a real option approach to migration choice that assumes that the decision to migrate can be described as an irreversible investment decision where quotas represent an upper bound limit. Our results show that the paradox of counterbalancing immigration policies is not odd but it could be in line with an optimal policy to control migration inflow. In particular, we show that if the government controls the information related to the immigration quota system it could delay the mass entry of immigrants maintaining, in the long run, the required immigration stock and controlling the flows in the short-run.

Suggested Citation

  • Moretto, Michele & Vergalli, Sergio, 2008. "Managing Migration through Quotas: An Option-theory Perspective," Knowledge, Technology, Human Capital Working Papers 37818, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:feemkt:37818
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.37818
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Del Boca, Alessandra & Fratianni, Michele & Spinelli, Franco & Trecroci, Carmine, 2010. "The Phillips curve and the Italian lira, 1861-1998," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 182-197, August.
    2. Alessandro Fedele & Raffaele Miniaci, 2010. "Do Social Enterprises Finance Their Investments Differently from For-profit Firms? The Case of Social Residential Services in Italy," Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 174-189, October.
    3. Francesco Menoncin & Paolo Panteghini, 2009. "Retrospective Capital Gains Taxation in the Real World," CESifo Working Paper Series 2674, CESifo.
    4. Bisin, A. & Geanakoplos, J.D. & Gottardi, P. & Minelli, E. & Polemarchakis, H., 2011. "Markets and contracts," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 279-288.
    5. Alessandro Fedele & Paolo M. Panteghini & Sergio Vergalli, 2011. "Optimal Investment and Financial Strategies under Tax‐Rate Uncertainty," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(4), pages 438-468, November.
    6. Alessandro Fedele & Francesco Liucci & Andrea Mantovani, 2009. "Credit availability in the crisis: the European investment bank group," Working Papers 0913, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.
    7. Martin Meier & Enrico Minelli & Herakles Polemarchakis, 2014. "Competitive markets with private information on both sides," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(2), pages 257-280, February.
    8. Rosella Levaggi & Francesco Menoncin, 2009. "Decentralized provision of merit and impure public goods," Working Papers 0909, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.
    9. Monica Billio & Roberto Casarin, 2010. "Bayesian Estimation of Stochastic-Transition Markov-Switching Models for Business Cycle Analysis," Working Papers 1002, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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