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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Hunt, Jennifer (McGill University); Gauthier-Loiselle, Marjolaine (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | We measure the extent to which skilled immigrants increase innovation in the United States by exploring individual patenting behavior as well as state-level determinants of patenting. The 2003 National Survey of College Graduates shows that immigrants patent at double the native rate, and that this is entirely accounted for by their disproportionately holding degrees in science and engineering. These data imply that a one percentage point rise in the share of immigrant college graduates in the population increases patents per capita by 6%. This could be an overestimate of immigration's benefit if immigrant inventors crowd out native inventors, or an underestimate if immigrants have positive spill-overs on inventors. Using a 1940-2000 state panel, we show that immigrants do have positive spill-overs, resulting in an increase in patents per capita of 9-18% in response to a one percentage point increase in immigrant college graduates. We isolate the causal effect by instrumenting the change in the share of skilled immigrants in a state with the state's predicted increase in the share of skilled immigrants. We base the latter on the 1940 distribution across states of immigrants from various source regions and the subsequent national increase in skilled immigrants from these regions. |
| Keywords: | immigration, innovation |
| JEL: | J61 D24 O32 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3921&r=mig |
| By: | Piracha, Matloob (University of Kent); Vadean, Florin (University of Kent) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of return migration on the Albanian economy by analysing the occupational choice of return migrants while explicitly differentiating between self-employment as either own account work or entrepreneurship. After taking into account the possible sample selection into return migration, we find that the own account workers have characteristics closer to non-participants in the labour market (i.e. lower education levels), while entrepreneurship is positively related to schooling, foreign language proficiency and savings accumulated abroad. Furthermore, compared to having not migrated, return migrants are significantly more likely not to participate in the labour market or to be entrepreneurs. However, after a one year re-integration period, the effect on non participation vanishes and that on entrepreneurship becomes stronger. As for non-migrants, the migration experience would have increased their probability to be entrepreneurs showing the positive impact of migration on job creating activities in Albania. |
| Keywords: | return migration, occupational choice, sample selection |
| JEL: | C35 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3922&r=mig |
| By: | Pi Alperin, Maria Noel (CEPS/INSTEAD (Luxembourg) and LAMETA (Unversité Montpellier I)) |
| Abstract: | This paper applies a multidimensional approach to poverty measurement based on fuzzy set theory, and its decomposition properties, in order to measure the deprivation level in Luxembourg and to identify the different characteristics of poverty between natives and immigrants (knowing that almost 40% of the population in Luxembourg are immigrants). The database used in this study is the 2006 wave of the Panel Socio-Economique Liewen zu Lëtzebuerg (PSELL-3) survey. |
| Keywords: | Decomposition; Immigrants ; Luxembourg ; Multidimensional Poverty ; Fuzzy Set Theory |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I32 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:iriswp:2008-14&r=mig |
| By: | Herrmann, Michael; Svarin, David |
| Abstract: | Bangladesh, like other least developed countries (LDC), has a large rural population and agricultural labor force. At the turn of the Millennium 75 percent of the LDCs’ population still lived in rural areas and 71 percent of the LDCs’ labor force was involved in agriculture. Yet, even the least developed countries are affected by rapidly accelerating rural-to-urban migration. This decade, 2001-2010, is the first ever in which the urban population grows faster than the rural population in the LDCs. And this change is also associated with a historic employment transition, where the agricultural sector gradually loses importance. Both the population and the employment transition that can be observed for the group of least develops countries, are largely attributable to LDC's in Asia, and in particular Bangladesh. The very large rural-urban migration in Bangladesh, in comparison with other least developed countries, is attributable to relatively strong push factors on the one hand, and strong pull factors on the other. The principle factor that encourages people to leave their homes in the country side is the frequent recurrence of natural disasters, which undermine agricultural development and cause food crisis. By contrast, the principle factor that attracts people to urban centers is the expansion of the non-agricultural sectors, industry and services, which promises jobs and higher household incomes. |
| Keywords: | Bangladesh; climate change; rural-urban migration; agricultural development; urban planning; dual-dual model; employment; poverty |
| JEL: | O18 J31 R0 J21 J61 Q54 I32 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12879&r=mig |
| By: | Furtado, Delia (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant's marriage to a native, a measure of social integration, on dropout rates of children from these marriages. Although second-generation immigrants with one native parent generally have lower dropout rates than those with two foreign-born parents, the relationship reverses when steps are taken to control for observable and unobservable background characteristics. That is, immigrants that marry natives have children that are more likely to dropout of high school than immigrants that marry other immigrants. Moreover, gender differences in the effect of marriage to a native disappear in specifications which control for the endogeneity of the marriage decision. |
| Keywords: | intermarriage, immigration, education |
| JEL: | J12 J61 Z13 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3931&r=mig |
| By: | Brown, J. David (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh); Hotchkiss, Julie L. (Georgia State University); Quispe-Agnoli, Myriam (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta) |
| Abstract: | Do firms employing undocumented workers have a competitive advantage? Using administrative data from the state of Georgia, this paper investigates the incidence of undocumented worker employment across firms and how it affects firm survival. Firms are found to engage in herding behavior, being more likely to employ undocumented workers if competitors do. Rivals' undocumented employment harms firms' ability to survive, while firms' own undocumented employment strongly enhances their survival prospects. This suggests that firms enjoy cost savings from employing lower-paid undocumented workers at wages less than their marginal revenue product. The herding behavior and competitive effects are found to be much weaker in geographically broad product markets, where firms have the option to shift labor-intensive production out of state or abroad. |
| Keywords: | undocumented workers, firm dynamics, monopsony, immigration policy |
| JEL: | L1 J23 J61 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3936&r=mig |
| By: | Gibson, John (University of Waikato); McKenzie, David (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | A unique survey which tracks worldwide the best and brightest academic performers from three Pacific countries is used to assess the extent of emigration and return migration among the very highly skilled, and to analyze, at the microeconomic level, the determinants of these migration choices. Although we estimate that the income gains from migration are very large, not everyone migrates and many return. Within this group of highly skilled individuals the emigration decision is found to be most strongly associated with preference variables such as risk aversion, patience, and choice of subjects in secondary school, and not strongly linked to either liquidity constraints or to the gain in income to be had from migrating. Likewise, the decision to return is strongly linked to family and lifestyle reasons, rather than to the income opportunities in different countries. Overall the data show a relatively limited role for income maximization in distinguishing migration propensities among the very highly skilled, and a need to pay more attention to other components of the utility maximization decision. |
| Keywords: | brain drain, brain gain, highly skilled migration, return migration, selectivity |
| JEL: | O15 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3926&r=mig |
| By: | Shiqing Jiang; Ming Lu; Hiroshi Sato |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of income inequality on the subjective well-being of different social groups in urban China. We classify urban social groups according to their hukou status: rural migrants, gbornh urban residents, and gacquiredh urban residents who once changed their hukou identity from rural to urban. We focus on how the horizontal inequality-income disparity between migrants and urban residents-affects individual happiness. The main results are as follows. First, migrants suffer from unhappiness when the horizontal inequality increases, but urban residents show a much smaller aversion to the horizontal inequality. Second, migrants will not be happier if their relative incomes within their migrant group increase, while urban residents do become happier when their incomes increase within their groupfs income distribution. Third, gacquiredh urban residents have traits of both migrants and gbornh urban residents. They have an aversion to the horizontal inequality like migrants, and they also favor higher relative income among urban residents. Fourth, gbornh urban residents have lower happiness scores when they are old. People who are Communist Party members strongly dislike the horizontal inequality. Our findings suggest that migrants, gacquiredh urban residents, elderly people and Party members from gbornh urban residents are the potential proponents of social integration policies in urban China. |
| Keywords: | Horizontal inequality, Happiness, Hukou identity, Migration, Social integration |
| JEL: | I31 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd08-020&r=mig |