Employment Effects of Dispersal Policies on Refugee Immigrants, Part I: Theory
36 Pages Posted: 4 Dec 2003
Date Written: November 2003
Abstract
This paper formulates a partial search model in which unemployed individuals simultaneously search for job and location of residence. Most importantly, we show that, ceteris paribus, a decrease in current place utility increases the transition rate into a new location of residence and the transition rate into employment outside the local labour market, but decreases the transition rate into local employment. Thus, a decrease in current place utility decreases the overall job-finding rate if the local reservation wage effect dominates. We argue that dispersal policies on refugee immigrants are characterized by low average values of current place utility. Hence, the model predicts that dispersal policies increase the geographical mobility rates of refugees and, for a sufficiently large local reservation wage effect, decrease their job-finding rates.
Keywords: job search, residential search, geographical mobility, dispersal policy on refugees
JEL Classification: J64, J68, J15
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation