Placement Optimization in Refugee Resettlement

Andrew C. Trapp (), Alexander Teytelboym, Alessandro Martinello, Tommy Andersson and Narges Ahani ()
Additional contact information
Andrew C. Trapp: Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Postal: Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Rd., Worcester, MA 01609, USA
Narges Ahani: Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Postal: Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Rd., Worcester, MA 01609, USA

No 2018:23, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Every year tens of thousands of refugees are resettled to dozens of host countries. While there is growing evidence that the initial placement of refugee families profoundly affects their lifetime outcomes, there have been few attempts to optimize resettlement decisions. We integrate machine learning and integer optimization into an innovative software tool, Annie Moore, that assists a US resettlement agency with matching refugees to their initial placements. Our software suggests optimal placements while giving substantial autonomy to the resettlement staff to fine-tune recommended matches, thereby streamlining their resettlement operations. Initial backtesting indicates that Annie can improve short-run employment outcomes by 22%–38%. We conclude by discussing several directions for future work.

Keywords: Refugee Resettlement; Matching; Integer Optimization; Machine Learning; Humanitarian Operations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C44 C55 C61 C78 F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2018-10-03, Revised 2020-03-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big and nep-gth
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/194855430/WP18_23 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Placement Optimization in Refugee Resettlement (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2018_023

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-22007 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iker Arregui Alegria ().