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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Naude, Wim |
| Abstract: | Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the highest growth rate in net international migration in the world. The reasons for this migration are investigated in this paper. First, a survey of the literature on the profile and determinants of international migration in SSA is given. Second, panel data on 45 countries spanning the period 1965 to 2005 are used to determine that the main reasons for international migration from SSA are armed conflict and lack of job opportunities. An additional year of conflict will raise net out-migration by 1.35 per 1,000 inhabitants and an additional 1 per cent growth will reduce net out-migration by 1.31 per 1,000. Demographic and environmental pressures have a less important direct impact, but a more pronounced indirect impact on migration through conflict and job opportunities. In particular, the frequency of natural disasters has a positive and significant effect on the probability that a country will experience an outbreak of armed conflict. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a ?migration hump? or of persistence in net migration rates in SSA, and no evidence that immigration is causing conflict in host countries. |
| Keywords: | international migration, conflict, natural disasters, environmental degradation, environmentally forced migration, Africa |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:rp2008-85&r=mig |
| By: | Ostrovsky, Yuri; Hou, Feng; Picot, Garnett |
| Abstract: | The recent economic boom in the Canadian province of Alberta provides an ideal "natural experiment" to examine immigrants' responses to a strong labour demand outside major metropolitan centres. The key finding of our study, which is based on a unique dataset that combines administrative and immigrant records, is that not only did immigrants respond to the recent economic boom in Alberta, but they responded generally more strongly than non-immigrants. We find, however, a great deal of heterogeneity in the magnitude of the response across different regions and for different categories of immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic diversity and immigration, Population and demography, Mobility and migration |
| Date: | 2008–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2008318e&r=mig |
| By: | Vivek Dehejia (Department of Economics, Carleton University, CESifo, Munich, Germany.); Marcel Voia (Department of Economics, Carleton University) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to ongoing debates on international income comparisons by deploying a novel methodology for constructing empirical distribution functions for the United States and Canada over the period 1993 - 2000. We also conduct tests for first, second, third order stochastic dominance and of intersection of distributions, to determine which,if either, country might be a preferred destination for migration. Our findings are for that all of the years for which there is comparable data, the Canadian income distribution second order stochastically dominates the US income distribution. We provide an interpretation in terms of expected utility theory, considering the case of log utility, and relate our findings to an argument by Joseph Stiglitz, that in the face of skewness of income distributions a potential migrant should look at the median rather than the mean. It turns out that Stiglitz's intuition is correct, at least in the context of our study. |
| Keywords: | Non-parametrics, Finite Mixtures, Heterogeneous Income Distribution, Stochastic Dominance, Kolmogorov-Smirnov type statistic, Bootstrap. |
| JEL: | C12 D31 D63 D81 |
| Date: | 2008–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:car:carecp:08-02&r=mig |
| By: | Richard Brecher (Department of Economics, Carleton University); Zhiqi Chen (Department of Economics, Carleton University) |
| Abstract: | We show how international trade, migration and outsourcing affect unemployment of skilled and unskilled labor, in a framework that integrates the Heckscher-Ohlin model of trade with the Shapiro-Stiglitz model of unemployment. Our approach allows us to analyze changes in not only aggregate unemployment, but also the distribution of unemployment between skilled and unskilled labor. As the analysis demonstrates, the unemployment rates of these two types of labor often move in opposite directions, thereby dampening the change in aggregate unemployment. Results depend on the source of comparative advantage, based on international differences in (for example) unemployment insurance or production technology. |
| Date: | 2008–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:car:carecp:08-07&r=mig |