Economic analysis of the right to asylum.

Summary We study the process of asylum legislation and its impact on refugees. The preliminary chapter presents the history of refugee flows and asylum policies, the reasons for migration and the philosophical stakes of the subject. The second chapter studies the influence of asylum policies on refugee flows. We analyse the impact of different types of asylum law restrictions on decisions of refugees choosing their country of destination and whether to apply for asylum. The use of traffickers indirectly influences the size of the immigration flows and the number of asylum claims. The third chapter describes the choice of the level of asylum standard chosen by different levels of government. This choice is made as a result of the expected result of a standard on refugee flows. Chapter four compares different institutional choices for asylum legislation in the European Union. Taking objectives concerning illegal immigration into account, it compares the level of standards that would be adopted by national governments, by the Council of the European Parliament, and in co-decision. The fifth chapter studies the structure of grants given Member states by the European Refugee Fund (ERF). The ERF grants both fixed funds and subsidies that complement project funding. Taking transaction costs into consideration, we study the impact of different grant structures on spending on refugees.