Tradable immigration quotas

Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga and Hillel Rapoport ()

Journal of Public Economics, 2014, vol. 115, issue C, 94-108

Abstract: International migration is maybe the single most effective way to alleviate global poverty. When a given host country allows more immigrants in, this creates costs and benefits for that particular country as well as a positive externality for individuals and governments who care about world poverty. Host countries quite often restrict immigration due to its important social and political costs, however these costs are never measured and made comparable across countries. In this paper we first show theoretically that tradable immigration quotas (TIQs) can reveal countries' comparative advantages in hosting immigrants and — once coupled with a matching mechanism taking migrants' preferences over destinations and countries' preferences over migrants' types into account — allow for exploiting them efficiently. We then discuss three potential applications: a market for the resettlement of international refugees, a market for the resettlement of migrants displaced by climate change, and the creation of an OECD poverty-reduction visa program adapted from the US green card lottery.

Keywords: Immigration; Immigration policy; Tradable quotas; Refugee resettlement; Climate change; International public goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 F5 H87 I3 K33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2013)
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2011)
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2011)
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2011)
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2011)
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2011)
Working Paper: Tradable Immigration Quotas (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:115:y:2014:i:c:p:94-108

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.04.002

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