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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Mesnard, Alice; Seabright, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper explores implications of the fact that individuals know more than the authorities about their risk of infection and can take migration decisions before their health status is publicly observable. In a 2-period model we study under which conditions the presence of quarantine measures may lead to inefficient outcomes as individuals' interest in migration to escape centres of disease may become stronger and generate negative externalities imposed on other uninfected individuals. |
| Keywords: | epidemic diseases; migration; public policy; quarantine |
| JEL: | I18 O15 O19 R23 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6653&r=mig |
| By: | Mesnard, Alice; Seabright, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper models how migration both influences and responds to differences in disease prevalence between cities, regions and countries, and show how the possibility of migration away from high-prevalence areas affects long-run steady state disease prevalence. We develop a dynamic framework where both migration and prevention behaviour respond to the prevalence of disease, to the costs of migration and of treatment, and to current and anticipated health regulations. The model treats disease prevalence as an endogenous consequence of other features of the areas concerned, notably their economic endowments. It explores how pressure for migration in response to differing equilibrium levels of disease prevalence causes countervailing differences in city characteristics, notably in land rents. Competition for scarce housing in low-prevalence areas can create pressures for segregation, with disease concentrated in high-prevalence "sinks". We show that multiple steady states may exist and explore their comparative static properties. In particular we find that migration can have positive health benefits, in that reductions in barriers to migration can reduce steady-state disease incidence in low-prevalence areas while having no impact on prevalence in high-prevalence areas. This may have important consequences for policy; in some circumstances, public health measures may need to avoid discouraging migration away from high-disease areas. |
| Keywords: | development; infectious diseases; migration; public health; quarantine |
| JEL: | I18 O15 O19 R23 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6651&r=mig |
| By: | van Ours, Jan C; Veenman, Justus |
| Abstract: | The allocation of Moluccan immigrants across towns and villages at arrival in the Netherlands and the subsequent formation of interethnic marriages resemble a natural experiment. The exogenous variation in marriage formation allows us to estimate the causal effect of interethnic marriages on the educational attainment of children from such marriages. We find that children from Moluccan fathers and native mothers have a higher educational attainment than children from ethnic homogeneous Moluccan couples or children from a Moluccan mother and a native father. |
| Keywords: | Educational Attainment; Interethnic marriages |
| JEL: | I21 J15 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6688&r=mig |
| By: | Hatton, Timothy J. |
| Abstract: | In the last 20 years, developed countries have struggled with what seemed to be an ever-rising tide of asylum seekers, a trend that has now gone into reverse. This paper examines what happened and why. How have oppression, violence and economic conditions in origin countries shaped worldwide trends in asylum applications? And has the toughening of policy towards asylum seekers since 2001 reduced the numbers? What policies have been effective and which host countries have been most affected? This paper surveys the trends in asylum seeking since the 1980s and the literature that it has generated and it provides new regression estimates of the determinants of asylum applications up to the present. The key findings are first, that violence and terror can account for much of the variation across source countries and over time but it cannot fully explain the original surge in asylum applications during the 1980s. And second, while tougher policies did have a deterrent effect, they account for only about a third of the decline in applications since 2001. |
| Keywords: | Asylum; Immigration Policy; Refugees |
| JEL: | F22 I38 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6752&r=mig |
| By: | Bertola, Giuseppe; Navaretti, Giorgio Barba; Sembenelli, Alessandro |
| Abstract: | We propose and solve a simple model of firm-level decisions to offshore production stages of lower skill intensity than that of activities that remain in the domestic location. In theory, offshoring is optimal only for the more productive among heterogeneous firms if it entails a fixed cost. In a large sample of Italian firms, offshoring - especially of intermediate production stages - is indeed more prevalent among firms that are larger and more productive, and is predicted by arguably relevant firm-level characteristics. We also document that offshoring decreases the share of unskilled employment in domestic production facilities as well as firms’ propensity to employ immigrant workers, and we discuss the possible determinants and policy implication of the latter finding. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Direct Investment; Migration; Outsourcing; Skilled Labour |
| JEL: | F2 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6743&r=mig |
| By: | Pia M. Orrenius; Madeline Zavodny; Leslie Lukens |
| Abstract: | The transformation of the U.S. border economy since the 1980s provides a fascinating backdrop to explore how migration to the U.S-side of the Mexican border has changed vis-a-vis migration to the U.S. interior. Some long-standing patterns of border migrants remained unchanged during this period while others underwent drastic changes. For example, border migrants are consistently more likely to be female, to have migrated within Mexico, and to lack migrant networks as compared with migrants to the U.S. interior. Meanwhile, the occupational profile of border migrants has changed drastically from being predominately agricultural work to being largely made up of service-sector and sales-related work. Border migration is more sensitive to Mexican and U.S. business cycles than migration to the U.S. interior throughout the period and, while the data suggest border migrant wages may have caught up to other migrants' wages by the early 2000s, multivariate analysis indicates that border migrants who are female and/or undocumented continue to earn far less than such migrants who work in the U.S. interior. |
| Keywords: | Emigration and immigration |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:0803&r=mig |
| By: | D'Amuri, Francesco; Ottaviano, Gianmarco I P; Peri, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | We adopt a general equilibrium approach in order to measure the effects of recent immigration on the Western German labor market, looking at both wage and employment effects. Using the Regional File of the IAB Employment Subsample for the period 1987-2001, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990's had no adverse effects on native wages and employment levels. It had instead adverse employment and wage effects on previous waves of immigrants. This stems from the fact that, after controlling for education and experience levels, native and migrant workers appear to be imperfect substitutes whereas new and old immigrants exhibit perfect substitutability. Our analysis suggests that if the German labour market were as `flexible' as the UK labour market, it would be more efficient in dealing with the effects of immigration. |
| Keywords: | Employment; Immigration; Skill Complementarities; Wages |
| JEL: | E24 F22 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6736&r=mig |
| By: | Elke Holst; Andrea Schäfer; Mechthild Schrooten |
| Abstract: | The determinants of migrants' remittances are the subject of this study based on German SOEP data (2001-2006). In contrast to previous studies we analyze the motives for remittances not only for foreigners but also for the broader group of individuals with a personal migration background. Major findings are: First, concerns about xenophobia lead to higher remittances. Second, income and gender has no impact on the probability to remit. Third, the acquisition of German citizenship is positively related to the amount remitted. All in all, remittances seem to be part of a personal financial allocation scheme for risk reduction. |
| Keywords: | Remittances, immigrant workers, household behavior |
| JEL: | F22 J61 D10 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp774&r=mig |
| By: | Belot, Michèle; Hatton, Timothy J. |
| Abstract: | The selection of immigrants by skill and education is a central issue in the analysis of immigration. Since highly educated immigrants tend to be more successful in host country labour markets and less of a fiscal cost it is important to know what determines the skill-selectivity of immigration. In this paper we examine the proportions of highly educated among migrants from around 80 source countries who were observed as immigrants in each of 29 OECD countries in 2000/1. We develop a variant of the Roy model to estimate the determinants of educational selectivity by source and destination country. We also estimate the determinants of the share of migrants from different source countries in each destination country’s immigrant stock. Two key findings emerge. One is that the effects of the skill premium, which is at the core of the Roy model, can be observed only after we take account of poverty constraints operating in source countries. The other is that cultural links and distance are often more important determinants of the proportion of high educated immigrants in different OECD countries than wage incentives or policy. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; Skill Selection |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6675&r=mig |
| By: | Ben-David, Dan |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a comparative examination of how public universities in two countries, the United States and Israel, have evolved over the past few decades - and how differences between the two have culminated in a rate of academic brain drain from the latter to the former that is unparalleled in the western world. The number of Israelis in the top 40 American departments in physics, chemistry, philosophy, computer science and economics, as a percentage of their remaining colleagues in Israel, is over twice the overall academic emigration rates (at all levels) from European countries. Signs of what is currently occurring in Israel have already begun to appear in other developed countries as well, though on a completely different scale - still - making the country an important case study that other countries should study, understand and prepare against a similar eventuality. |
| Keywords: | brain drain; higher education; migration |
| JEL: | A11 F22 H52 H83 I23 J31 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6717&r=mig |
| By: | Emmanuel K.K. Lartey; Federico S. Mandelman; Pablo A. Acosta |
| Abstract: | Using disaggregated sectorial data, this study shows that rising levels of remittances have spending effects that lead to real exchange rate appreciation and resource movement effects that favor the nontradable sector at the expense of tradable goods production. These characteristics are two aspects of the phenomenon known as Dutch disease. The results further indicate that these effects operate more strongly under fixed nominal exchange rate regimes. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2008-12&r=mig |
| By: | Anderson, Kym; Winters, L Alan |
| Abstract: | While barriers to trade in most goods and some services including capital flows have been reduced considerably over the past two decades, many remain. Such policies harm most the economies imposing them, but the worst of the merchandise barriers (in agriculture and textiles) are particularly harmful to the world’s poorest people, as are barriers to worker migration across borders. This paper focuses on how costly those anti-poor trade policies are, and examines possible strategies to reduce remaining distortions. Two opportunities in particular are addressed: completing the Doha Development Agenda process at the World Trade Organization (WTO), and freeing up the international movement of workers. A review of the economic benefits and adjustment costs associated with these opportunities provides the foundation to undertake benefit/cost analysis required to rank this set of opportunities against those aimed at addressing the world’s other key challenges as part of the Copenhagen Consensus project. The paper concludes with key caveats and suggests that taking up these opportunities could generate huge social benefit/cost ratios that are considerably higher than the direct economic ones quantified in this study, even without factoring in their contribution to alleviating several of the other challenges identified by that project, including malnutrition, disease, poor education and air pollution. |
| Keywords: | Doha Development Agenda; international migration; trade policy reform |
| JEL: | F02 F13 F15 F17 F22 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6760&r=mig |
| By: | Constant, Amelie; Gataullina, Liliya; Zimmermann, Klaus F |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of naturalization among Turkish and ex-Yugoslav immigrants in Germany differentiating between actual and planned citizenship. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we measure the impact that integration and ethnicity indicators exert on the probability to naturalize beyond the standard individual and human capital characteristics. A robust finding is that German citizenship is very valuable to female immigrants and the generally better educated, but not to those educated in Germany. We find that the degree of integration in German society has a differential effect on citizenship acquisition. While a longer residence in Germany has a negative influence on actual or future naturalization, arriving at a younger age and having close German friends are strong indicators of a positive proclivity to citizenship acquisition. Likewise, ethnic origins and religion also influence these decisions. Muslim immigrants in Germany are more willing to become German citizens than non-Muslim immigrants, but there are also fewer German citizens among Muslims than among non-Muslims. |
| Keywords: | Citizenship; ethnicity; integration; naturalization |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6656&r=mig |