Classifying countries as safe countries of origin appears to substantially reduce the number of asylum applications from such countries. That is the conclusion reached by IfW economists Sebastian Braun and Richard Franke. They compared the number of asylum applications made in 2014 and 2015 from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Serbia, which were all declared safe countries in 2014, with the applications received from the neighboring states of Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro, which are not designated safe countries. “There is clear evidence that categorizing a country as a safe or unsafe country of origin has an impact on the number of asylum applications from that country,” says Sebastian Braun, Head of the Research Area Globalization and the Welfare State.