lecture 4 - forced migration I

Question 1

stylized facts on sending and host countries

where do refugees come from, where do they go?

high concentration and unequal distribution of burden

Answer 1

• high concentration of sending countries (Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan)
• high concentration on neighboring coutries
• high concentration on poor countries

Question 2

what are the top 5 host countries?

Answer 2

Iran
Turke
Colombia
Germany
Uganda

total refugee stock is a minor share of global pop

total proced displaced 1,5%, forced displaced abroad 0,6% but heavily concentrated on few regions and host countries

Question 3

The ethical problem

Answer 3

• huge benefits for those affected by war
• non-trivial economic and social costs in countries providing shelter
  –> question of providing shelter cannot be addressed on pure self-interest - requieres value judgements

Question 4

Welfare Economics. Name 2 approaches

welfare = distribution of ressources

Answer 4

1) (rather conservative) utilitarian criteria of mximizing the utility sum or average utility of individuals
2) fair distribution of utility, e.g. min-max principle, so maximizing well-being of the most disadvantages individual

Question 5

the “original position” or 2veil of ignorance”

Answer 5

Some economists and social philosophers propoed to make a value judgement in an original position regardless of One’s position in society

Question 6

Welfare function according utalitarian criteria

Answer 6

max W = pxb+(1-p)xc

b:utility gain of recierving shelter; c:cost of providing shelter

p:probability of living in Aleppo 2015 vs probability to live in Berlin (1-p)

Question 7

Practical implications for asylum policies

Answer 7

utility is hard to measure fro both refug & pop from dest. country
- but refugees benefit more than others from shelter
- efficiency plays thus a role: the better the asylum precedures, the mbetter the integration policies, the lower the costs of providing protection, the higher the global welfare

Question 8

Asylum as a public good - what’s the issue and what’s the consequence?

Answer 8

public goods are non-rivalry in consumption and non-excludable -> creates incentives for free-riding which is the main issue of corrdination asylum policies internationally
consequence: protection level is suboptimal

Question 9

which are te 2 main tasks for policy coordination?

Answer 9

1. providing safe gateways into EU
2. Allocating refugees and distributing costs in an efficient and fair way

apart of others like harmonizing rules or minimum standard for example

Question 11

3 step mechanism by Fernandez-Huertas Moroga

Answer 11

1) Allocation of trdabale refugee quotas (by population size and economic performance)
2) Trading these quotas
3) Matching preferences of refugees & countries

cost-sharing is fair, tradable quotas & matching mechanism are pareto-efficient