The political economy of migration enforcement: domestic versus border control

Facchini, Giovanni; Testa, Cecilia

Abstract

We study migration policy enforcement by an elected government. The policy-maker faces uncertainty on the supply of migrants, but has more information than the public on its preferences and the extent and effectiveness of its enforcement activities. We show that a utilitarian government preferring more migrants than the majority may find it optimal to set a restrictive target to please the median voter, while relaxing its enforcement to admit more foreigners in a concealed way. Lax enforcement may be achieved either by deploy- ing inadequate resources on cost–effective activities (domestic enforcement) or by allocating a larger budget on less effective tools (border enforcement). The attractiveness of one in- strument over the other depends on the size of the immigrant flow: if the supply is large, border enforcement might be preferred because, although more costly, it brings the number of migrants closer to the utilitarian optimum. Hence, re–election concerns might provide a rationale for the widespread use of less a effective enforcement tool, such as border control.

Citation

Facchini, G., & Testa, C. (2015). The political economy of migration enforcement: domestic versus border control. CESifo Economic Studies, 61(3-4), https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifv005

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Mar 7, 2015
• Deposit Date: Nov 9, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 9, 2015
• Journal: CESifo Economic Studies
• Print ISSN: 1610-241X
• Electronic ISSN: 1612-7501
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 3-4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifv005
• Keywords: illegal immigration, immigration policy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/747915
• Publisher URL: http://cesifo.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/3-4/701.full
• Additional Information: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in CESifo Economic Studies following peer review. The version of record Giovanni Facchini and Cecilia Testa ; The Political Economy of Migration Enforcement: Domestic Versus Border Control; CESifo Economic Studies 2015 61: 701-721 is available online at: http://cesifo.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/3-4/701.full; ; This article is part of the CEPR project ‘Temporary Migration, Integration and the role of Policies’ (TEMPO) funded by the NORFACE Research Programme: ‘Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics’.