Research projects

Asylum policy is one of the most contentious issues in the European Union (EU). There is no consensus on the distribution of refugees among member states or on the reform of the asylum system. This project applies economic theory to develop three novel approaches.

Subproject 1 is complete. The results were published in The Economic Journal under the title Refugee Relocation: A Mechanism Design Approach. This article proposes a new mechanism to relocate refugees within the EU during migration crises. The key idea is to incorporate member states’ preferences to achieve Pareto improvements over a mandatory quota system.

Subproject 2 is well advanced. The findings have been presented at conferences and published as a working paper titled Optimal Refugee Status Determination. We propose a new asylum system to distinguish refugees from economic migrants more efficiently. The innovation is to offer two options to irregular migrants arriving in the EU: applying for asylum or participating in a visa lottery. This mechanism incentivizes self-selection, ensuring that only refugees apply for asylum.

Subproject 3 is still in its early stages. We apply game theory to analyze the Dublin Regulation, which requires asylum applications to be processed by the member state through which migrants enter the EU. However, this rule is not properly enforced. By combining data and theory, we examine the strategies adopted by both countries and migrants in the "Dublin game". The goal is to rationalize the current distribution of asylum seekers and assess possible reforms, such as allowing migrants to choose where to apply for asylum.