Do asylum-seekers respond to policy changes? Evidence from the Swedish-Syrian case

Do asylum-seekers respond to policy changes in their destination country, and to what extent? We approach this question by using high-frequency data, and we focus on a sudden liberalization in Swedish policy toward Syrian asylum-seekers, which implied permanent instead of temporary residence. We show a clear and fast, yet temporary, increase in Syrian asylum applications in Sweden after the policy change. Also, the policy caused a shift - not limited to the short term - in the share of individuals arriving without family, and consequently in the share applying for family reunification. Our study adds quasi-experimental evidence to the literature on inter-country asylum flows and migration policy.