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Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden : Stable Maximum Matchings

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  • Tommy ANDERSSON
  • Lars EHLERS

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 algorithm that finds a stable maximum matching. Such matching guarantees that housing is 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

  • Tommy ANDERSSON & Lars EHLERS, 2016. "Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden : Stable Maximum Matchings," Cahiers de recherche 13-2016, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montec:13-2016
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    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. Andersson, Tommy, 2017. "Refugee Matching as a Market Design Application," Working Papers 2017:16, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. ANDERSSON, Tommy & EHLERS, Lars & MARTINELLO, Alessandro, 2018. "Dynamic refugee matching," Cahiers de recherche 2018-16, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    8. 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.
    9. Zhang, Jun, 2019. "Efficient and fair assignment mechanisms are strongly group manipulable," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 167-177.
    10. Haris Aziz & Florian Brandl, 2021. "Efficient, Fair, and Incentive-Compatible Healthcare Rationing," Papers 2102.04384, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    11. 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; private landlords; forced migration; market design; 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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