Publications

2016
Working Paper

Refugee Resettlement

By: David Delacretaz, Scott Duke Kominers and Alexander Teytelboym

Over 100,000 refugees are permanently resettled from refugee camps to hosting countries every year. Nevertheless, refugee resettlement processes in most countries are ad hoc, accounting for neither the priorities of hosting communities nor the preferences of refugees... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Marketplace Matching; Mathematical Methods

Article

Syrian Refugees in Turkey and the Politics of Post Conflict Reconciliation

By: Kristin Fabbe and Tolga Sınmazdemir

Finding suitable settlements to civil wars, then proceeding to reconcile and reintegrate civilian communities to realize such settlements and avoid future conflict, poses many seemingly insurmountable challenges. The Syrian conflict is a case in point. Not only has a... View Details

Keywords: Syrian Refugees; Conflict; Postconflict Reconciliation; Refugees; War; Conflict and Resolution; Attitudes; Syria; Turkey

September 2007
Journal Article

Refugee Camp Economies

By: Eric D. Werker

This paper describes the economy of a refugee camp. Key distortions to the economy of Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Uganda are noted and the findings are used to construct a generic model of a refugee camp economy. Camp economies are influenced by host country... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Economy; Policy; Civil Society or Community; Human Needs; Societal Protocols; Uganda

2022
Working Paper

Control and Fairness: What Determines Elected Local Leaders’ Support for Hosting Refugees in Their Community?

By: Kristin Fabbe, Eleni Kyrkopoulou, Konstantinos Matakos and Aslı Unan

When it comes to successful refugee reception the local level matters. Research overwhelmingly examines host communities' attitudes, but endorsement from local politicians is equally important to resolving conflicts and facilitating harmonious interaction. Yet, the... View Details

Keywords: Values; Control; Refugee Resettlement; Local Elites; Contact; Fair-share; Conjoint Experiment; Refugees; Integration; Local Range; Leadership; Attitudes; Fairness

April 2023
Article

Control and Fairness: What Determines Elected Local Leaders’ Support for Hosting Refugees in Their Community?

By: Kristin Fabbe, Eleni Kyrkopoulou, Konstantinos Matakos and Aslı Unan

When it comes to successful refugee reception, the local level matters. Research overwhelmingly examines host communities’ attitudes, but endorsement from local politicians is equally important to resolving conflicts and facilitating harmonious interaction. Yet the... View Details

Keywords: Values; Control; Refugee Resettlement; Local Elites; Contact; Fair-share; Conjoint Experiment; Refugees; Attitudes

April 2016 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Managing the European Refugee Crisis

By: Gunnar J. Trumbull, Elena Corsi and Daniela Beyersdorfer

In 2016, Europe struggles to cope with one of the largest refugee flows it has ever witnessed. View Details

Keywords: Migration; European Union; Economy; Immigration; European Union

Educators

Working Paper

Group Fairness in Dynamic Refugee Assignment

By: Daniel Freund, Thodoris Lykouris, Elisabeth Paulson, Bradley Sturt and Wentao Weng

Ensuring that refugees and asylum seekers thrive (e.g., find employment) in their host countries is a profound humanitarian goal, and a primary driver of employment is the geographic location within a host country to which the refugee or asylum seeker is... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Geographic Location; Mathematical Methods; Employment; Fairness

15 Jun 2017
News

Understanding What Syrian Refugees Want

August 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Just Arrived: Integrating Refugees in Sweden

By: Brian Trelstad, Emilie Billaud and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

Just Arrived is an online platform that matches newly-arrived immigrants in Sweden with employment opportunities. As one of several for-profit and non-profit start-ups in Europe that is looking to address the refugee crisis, the case enables a comparative analysis of... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Refugees; Employment; Integration; Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Sweden; Italy; Germany

Educators

January 2022
Teaching Plan

Just Arrived: Integrating Refugees in Sweden

By: Brian Trelstad and Emilie Billaud

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 321-040. Just Arrived is an online platform that matches newly-arrived immigrants in Sweden with employment opportunities. As one of several for-profit and non-profit start-ups in Europe that is looking to address the refugee crisis, the... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Refugees; Employment; Integration; Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Sweden; Italy; Germany

November–December 2024
Article

Outcome-Driven Dynamic Refugee Assignment with Allocation Balancing

By: Kirk Bansak and Elisabeth Paulson

This study proposes two new dynamic assignment algorithms to match refugees and asylum seekers to geographic localities within a host country. The first, currently implemented in a multi-year pilot in Switzerland, seeks to maximize the average predicted employment... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Refugees; Geographic Location; Employment

May 2024
Article

Refugees Are Hosted in Highly Vulnerable Communities

By: C. Austin Davis, Paula Lopez-Peña, A. Mushfiq Mobarak and Jaya Y. Wen

Low- and middle-income nations host 76 percent of the world's refugees. This study uses original data to explore within-country spatial variability in refugee-hosting responsibilities. We find that hosting responsibilities for the displaced Rohingya people in... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Political Elections; Equality and Inequality; Immigration; Developing Countries and Economies; Income

2025
Working Paper

Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany

By: Philipp Jaschke, Sulin Sardoschau and Marco Tabellini

This paper studies the effects of local threat on the cultural assimilation and economic integration of refugees, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in their allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016. We use representative survey data and... View Details

Keywords: Assimilation; Threat Hypothesis; Migration; Cultural Change; Refugees; Culture; Identity; Germany

06 Apr 2017
Cold Call Podcast

Why German Business Supports, Trains and Hires Syrian Refugees

Keywords: Re: Rebecca M. Henderson

01 Mar 2017
News

The Realities of the Refugee Crisis

Illustration by Peter Arkle Since the outbreak of civil war in 2011, 4.9 million Syrians have fled their country, and another 6.6 million are internally displaced, according to the UN Refugee Agency. To better understand the human,... View Details

Keywords: April White

06 Apr 2017
News

Why German Business Supports, Trains, and Hires Syrian Refugees

September 19, 2016
Article

Matchmaking to Find Homes for Refugees

By: Alex Teytelboym and Scott Duke Kominers