Tradable immigration quotas revisited

Abstract

This paper revisits the theory behind tradable immigration quotas, which have been proposed to raise South-North migration and, specifically, refugee resettlement. We qualify previous research by showing that tradable immigration quotas are generally not utilitarian efficient for host countries. The reason is that global migration entails more complex externalities than other public-good problems, such as environmental protection, where market-based instruments are common. The inefficiency is exacerbated when migrants are matched to countries. Despite these caveats, we offer new results in favor of tradable immigration quotas plus matching.