A Game Theory Perspective on Territoriality and Migrant Assistance, 1993-2013

• In Event: 181 - Regular Session. Immigration to the United States: Theoretical and Methodological Issues

Abstract

Applying concepts from game theory, this study focuses on public assistance offered to Southeast Asian, Cuban, and Soviet refugees arriving between 1980 and 1995. The underlying argument is that prioritization of these groups as presumptive refugees promoted nonzero-sum geopolitical objectives of the Cold War. Despite a global human rights advocacy network increasingly empowered by the information revolution, UN-sponsored non-territorial protocols have only partially supplanted geopolitically motivated admission norms. Using 21 large-sample CPS supplements covering 1993 to 2013, multi-tiered logistic regressions show substantially greater assistance odds for each presumptive Cold War refugee group than for natives who are the same age (18-64 years old). Moreover, working-age presumptive refugees are often more likely than working-age natives to receive any of four types of public assistance—disability, basic, medical or child-nutrition. In contrast, non-presumptive refugees, arriving 1980-1995 or 1996-2005, differ little from natives in using work-displacing disability assistance. Also, in no instance are the maximum odds for presumptive refugees matched by comparable odds for non-presumptive refugees regarding any type of assistance. Contrary to welfare-magnet arguments, assistance odds for sponsored non-refugee immigrants are often below, and only occasionally rise above, the native baseline. Ultimately, territorial ramifications of the information revolution are explored.

Author

• Christopher S. Girard, Florida International University