Article

Sale of visas : a smuggler's final song?

Emmanuelle Auriol, and Alice Mesnard

Abstract

Is there a way of eliminating human smuggling? We set up a model to simultaneously determine the provision of human smuggling services and the demand from would-be migrants. A visa-selling policy may be successful at eliminating smugglers by eroding their profits but it also increases immigration. In contrast, repression decreases migration but fuels cartelized smugglers. To overcome this trade-off we show that legalisation through selling visas in combination with repression can be used to weaken human smuggling while controlling migration flows. Our results highlight the complementarities between repression and selling visas and call into question current policies.

Keywords

migration; human smuggling; market structure; legalisation;

JEL codes

  • F22: International Migration
  • I18: Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health
  • L51: Economics of Regulation
  • O15: Human Resources • Human Development • Income Distribution • Migration

Reference

Emmanuelle Auriol, and Alice Mesnard, Sale of visas : a smuggler's final song?, Economica, vol. 83, n. 332, October 2016, pp. 646–678.

Published in

Economica, vol. 83, n. 332, October 2016, pp. 646–678