Should I Stay or Must I Go? Temporary Protection and Refugee Outcomes

Matilda Kilström, Birthe Larsen and Elisabet Olme

No 5-2018, Working Papers from Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study a Danish reform in 2002 that lowered the ex ante probability of refugees receiving permanent residency by prolonging the time period before they were eligible to apply for permanent residency. Assignment to the new rules was completely determined by the date of the asylum application and the reform was implemented retroactively. We formulate a simple search and matching model to derive predictions that can be tested using our data. Then we study the effects on educational and labor market outcomes and find that the reform significantly increased enrollment in formal education, especially for females and low skilled individuals. In terms of employment and earnings, coefficients are in general negative but non-significant. Other outcomes of interest are also studied. The reform had a negative impact on criminal activity driven by a reduction among males. There are no effects on health outcomes and significant but relatively small negative effects on childbearing for females. The results do not seem to be driven by selection, since the reform had no significant effect on the share that stayed in Denmark in the long run.

Keywords: refugees; human capital; immigration law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J24 J61 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2018-05-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9650 Full text (application/pdf)
Full text not avaiable

Related works:
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:cbsnow:2018_005

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics, Porcelaenshaven 16 A. 1.floor, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CBS Library Research Registration Team ().