International migrant flows: Coalition formation among countries and social welfare

Abstract

In this paper, we consider policy interventions for international migrant flows and quantify their ramifications. In particular, we further develop a recent equilibrium model of international human migration in which some of the destination countries form coalitions to establish a common upper bound on the migratory flows that they agree to accept jointly. We also consider here a scenario where some countries can leave or join an initial coalition and investigate the problem of finding the coalitions that maximize the overall social welfare. Moreover, we compare the social welfare at equilibrium with the one that a supranational organization might suggest in an ideal scenario. This research adds to the literature on the development of mathematical models to address pressing issues associated with problems of human migration with insights for policy and decision-makers.