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Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden: Efficient Stable Maximum Matchings

Author

Listed:
  • Andersson, Tommy

    (Department of Economics, Lund University)

  • Ehlers, Lars

    (Département de sciences économiques and CIREQ, Université de Montréal)

Abstract

The member states of the European Union received 1.2 million first time asylum applications in 2015 (a doubling compared to 2014). Even if asylum will be granted for many of the refugees that made the journey to Europe, several obstacles for successful integration remain. This paper focuses on one of these obstacles, namely the problem of finding housing for refugees once they have been granted asylum. In particular, the focus is restricted to the situation in Sweden during 2015–2016 and it is demonstrated that market design can play an important role in a partial solution to the problem. More specifically, because almost all accommodation options are exhausted in Sweden, the paper investigates a matching system, closely related to the system adopted by the European NGO "Refugees Welcome", and proposes an easy-to-implement mechanism that finds an efficient stable maximum matching. Such matching guarantees that housing is efficiently provided to a maximum number of refugees and that no refugee prefers some landlord to their current match when, at the same time, that specific landlord prefers that refugee to his current match.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersson, Tommy & Ehlers, Lars, 2016. "Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden: Efficient Stable Maximum Matchings," Working Papers 2016:18, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 27 Aug 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2016_018
    as

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    File URL: https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/194593842/WP16_18
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "Strategy-proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the New York City High School Match," NBER Working Papers 14864, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alvin Roth, 2008. "Deferred acceptance algorithms: history, theory, practice, and open questions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 537-569, March.
    3. Eric Budish & Estelle Cantillon, 2012. "The Multi-unit Assignment Problem: Theory and Evidence from Course Allocation at Harvard," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2237-2271, August.
    4. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "Strategy-Proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1954-1978, December.
    5. , & ,, 2006. "A theory of stability in many-to-many matching markets," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(2), pages 233-273, June.
    6. Shapley, Lloyd & Scarf, Herbert, 1974. "On cores and indivisibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-37, March.
    7. Aytek Erdil & Haluk Ergin, 2008. "What's the Matter with Tie-Breaking? Improving Efficiency in School Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 669-689, June.
    8. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2016. "Group Strategy-Proofness in Private Good Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 1073-1099, April.
    9. Elliott Peranson & Alvin E. Roth, 1999. "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 748-780, September.
    10. Alvin E. Roth, 1982. "The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 617-628, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Philippe Van Basshuysen, 2017. "Towards a Fair Distribution Mechanism for Asylum," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    3. Anastasia Blouchoutzi & Dimitra Manou & Jason Papathanasiou, 2022. "The Regional Allocation of Asylum Seekers in Greece: A Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Biró, Péter & Gudmundsson, Jens, 2021. "Complexity of finding Pareto-efficient allocations of highest welfare," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(2), pages 614-628.
    5. Agnes Cseh & Klaus Heeger, 2020. "The stable marriage problem with ties and restricted edges," IEHAS Discussion Papers 2007, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    6. ANDERSSON, Tommy & EHLERS, Lars & MARTINELLO, Alessandro, 2018. "Dynamic refugee matching," Cahiers de recherche 2018-16, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    7. Miralles, Antonio & Pycia, Marek, 2021. "Foundations of pseudomarkets: Walrasian equilibria for discrete resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    8. In'acio B'o & Li Chen, 2021. "Designing Heaven's Will: The job assignment in the Chinese imperial civil service," Papers 2105.02457, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    9. Tommy Andersson & Lars Ehlers, 2020. "Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden: Efficient, Stable, and Maximum Matchings," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 937-965, July.
    10. Zhang, Jun, 2019. "Efficient and fair assignment mechanisms are strongly group manipulable," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 167-177.
    11. Andersson, Tommy, 2017. "Refugee Matching as a Market Design Application," Working Papers 2017:16, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    12. Guillaume Haeringer & Vincent Iehlé, 2019. "Two-Sided Matching with (Almost) One-Sided Preferences," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 155-190, August.
    13. Avidit Acharya & Kirk Bansak & Jens Hainmueller, 2019. "Combining Outcome-Based and Preference-Based Matching: A Constrained Priority Mechanism," Papers 1902.07355, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    14. Haris Aziz & Florian Brandl, 2021. "Efficient, Fair, and Incentive-Compatible Healthcare Rationing," Papers 2102.04384, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    15. Noda, Shunya, 2020. "Size versus truncation robustness in the assignment problem," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-5.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    refugees; forced migration; housing markets; market design; efficient stable maximum matchings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

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