Over the last 15 years, the locus of policymaking towards asylum seekers and refugees has shifted away from national governments and towards the European Union (EU) as the Common European Asylum Policy has developed. Most of the focus has been on the harmonization of policies relating to border...

Policy toward asylum-seekers has been controversial. Since the late 1990s, the EU has been developing a Common European Asylum System, but without clearly identifying the basis for cooperation. Providing a safe haven for refugees can be seen as a public good and this provides the rationale for...

It is widely believed that the current recession has soured public attitudes towards immigration. But most existing studies are cross sectional and can shed little light on the economy-wide forces that shift public opinion on immigration. In this paper I use the six rounds of the European Social...

Historical experience suggests that when a period of rising immigration is followed by a sudden slump, this can trigger a policy backlash. This has not occurred in the current recession. This paper examines three links in the chain between the slump and immigration policy. First, although...