EVENT: Game-Theoretic Analysis of Asylum Provision

In this seminar, I examine asylum provision by two countries as a discontinuous game of public good provision. The discontinuity of payoff functions among the providers results from the destination choices that asylum seekers make for their asylum applications. It is well known that a discontinuous game does not necessarily yield a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, and the game I present is no exception. I derive necessary conditions for the existence of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. When a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium exists, I characterise each of them. Multiple equilibria are possible. More importantly, a unique equilibrium can be characterised by a pair of asylum policies where the country that is less popular among potential asylum seekers imposes a more restrictive policy. (Note that, in this model, the low popularity is exogenously assumed and is not the result of the restrictive policy.) The existing literature fails to identify this class of equilibrium. (The existing literature shows that the more popular country imposes a more restrictive policy in order to prevent a large number of asylum applications.) The seminar concludes with suggestions of future directions.