|
on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Stillman, Steven |
| Abstract: | The impacts of international migration on development in the sending countries, and especially the effects on remaining household members, are increasingly studied. However, comparisons of households in developing countries with and without migrants are complicated by a double-selectivity problem: households self-select into migration, and among households involved in migration, some send a subset of members with the rest remaining while other households migrate en masse. The authors address these selectivity issues using the randomization provided by an immigration ballot under the Pacific Access Category of New Zealand’s immigration policy. They survey applicants to the 2002-05 ballots in Tonga and compare outcomes for the remaining household members of emigrants with those for members of similar households that were unsuccessful in the ballots. The immigration laws determine which household members can accompany the principal migrant, providing an instrument to address the second selectivity issue. Using this natural experiment, the authors examine the myriad impacts that migration has on remaining household members, focussing on labor supply, income, durable assets, financial service usage, diet, and physical and mental health. The analysis uses multiple hypothesis testing procedures to examine which impacts are robust. The findings indicate that the overall impact on households left behind is largely negative. The findings also reveal evidence that both sources of selectivity matter, leading studies that fail to adequately address them to misrepresent the impact of migration. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Access to Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Housing&Human Habitats,Anthropology |
| Date: | 2009–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4956&r=mig |
| By: | Esteban Sanromà (Universitat de Barcelona); Raúl Ramos (Universitat de Barcelona); Hipólito Simón (Universitat de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to analyse the role played by the different components of human capital in the wage determination of recent immigrants within the Spanish labour market. Using microdata from the Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes 2007, the paper examines returns to human capital of immigrants, distinguishing between human capital accumulated in their home countries and in Spain. It also examines the impact on wages of the legal status. The evidence shows that returns to host country sources of human capital are higher than returns to foreign human capital, reflecting the limited international transferability of the latter. The only exception occurs in the case of immigrants from developed countries and immigrants who have studied in Spain. Whatever their home country, they obtain relatively high wage returns to education, including the part not acquired in the host country. Having legal status in Spain is associated with a substantial wage premium of around 15%. Lastly, the overall evidence confirms the presence of a strong heterogeneity in wage returns to different kinds of human capital and in the wage premium associated to the legal status as a function of the immigrants’ area of origin. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, wages, human capital. |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2009/6/doc2009-8&r=mig |
| By: | Ziesemer, Thomas (UNU-MERIT, Department of Economics, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | The credit crisis of OECD countries has a negative impact on the growth of the world economy according to a simple error correction model. This causes negative growth effects in poor developing countries. The reduced growth has a direct or indirect impact on the convergence issue, aid, remittances, labour force growth, investment and savings, net foreign debt, migration, tax revenues, public expenditure on education and literacy. We estimate dynamic equations of all these variables using dynamic panel data methods for a panel of countries with per capita income below $1200 (2000). The estimated equations are then integrated to a dynamic system of fourteen equations for fourteen variables that allows for highly non-linear baseline simulations for these open economies. Then we analyze the effects of shocks as predicted by the international organizations for the OECD and world growth for 2008 and 2009. Whereas growth rates return to the baseline scenario very quickly, the GDP per capita returns to its baseline level in OECD countries and the world economy after some years but in poor developing countries it remains below the baseline scenario for more than 200 years. This long run blow to convergence leads to more remittances and emigration, a lower labour force growth, higher shares of GDP for saving, tax revenues, public expenditure on education and investment, and higher literacy. However, all these stabilizing forces through remittances and emigration cannot compensate the losses in levels of growth. Short and medium run effects are driven by a return to baseline for OECD and world GDP growth rates by the end of 2010, but for levels only 10 to 30 years later. Therefore we first get 15 to 20 years of fewer remittances, tax revenues, savings, public expenditure on education, literacy, and investment, more emigration and lower labour force growth. |
| Keywords: | crisis, migration, remittances, accumulation, growth |
| JEL: | F22 F24 O15 J61 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2009026&r=mig |
| By: | Azzarri, Carlo; Carletto, Calogero |
| Abstract: | Since 1990 migration flows from Albania have been massive, relative to the size of the country and its population, but they have also fluctuated over time. This paper presents and discusses various descriptive trends, mainly in graphical form. The data come from the Albanian Living Standards Measurement Survey, 2005 round, and cover the period 1990-2004. The resulting observed trends reflect changing push and pull factors in Albania and the two main host countries, Greece and Italy. The paper also presents a hazard approach to modeling Albanian emigration and return migration. This analysis highlights, among other things, the relevance of networks in Albanian migration dynamics, both to promote emigration and to delay return. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Anthropology,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement,International Migration |
| Date: | 2009–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4945&r=mig |
| By: | Yu Zhu; Zhongmin Wu; Liquan Peng; Laiyun Sheng |
| Abstract: | We focus on the impact of migrants’ remittances on consumption patterns in rural China, allowing for endogeneity of remittances and county fixed-effects. We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of remittances is close to unity, which is far greater than that out of non-migrant earnings or farm income. These findings imply that rural households take remittances as permanent income and are consistent with the prevalence of circular and repeat migration which is largely caused by the combination of the restrictive hukou (household registration) system and the rigid land tenure system in China. |
| Keywords: | Rural-Urban Migration; Remittances; Consumption Patterns; Fixed-Effect Instrumental-Variables Estimation |
| JEL: | D12 D13 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0907&r=mig |
| By: | Lindvall, Lars (Department of Economics, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | There are large differences in income and education levels, unemployment and ethnic composition between neighbourhoods. An interesting question is whether a neighbourhood’s characteristics affect the behaviour of its residents. This paper investigates neighbourhood effects on youths’ post primary education choice. Besides including usual variables the paper also includes neighbourhood specific economic incentives. Estimating linear probability models as well as multinomial logit models using Swedish register data, covering the county of Stockholm and the years 1988–1992, I find that both neighbourhood characteristics and economic incentives affect the choice. For the latter the results are quite clear although the size of the effect is small: an increase in the expected income of an alternative increases the probability that this alternative is chosen. For the neighbourhood variables the results differ to some extent depending on the model. The proportion of individuals with at most compulsory education in a neighbourhood does however seem to have a negative effect on applying for a university preparatory programme. The proportion of immigrants in a neighbourhood tend to have a positive effect on immigrants’ probability to apply for a university preparatory programme. |
| Keywords: | Neighbourhoods; economic incentives; educational choice |
| JEL: | I20 I22 R19 |
| Date: | 2009–05–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2009_011&r=mig |
| By: | Blair Schaeffer |
| Date: | 2009–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwneu:neurusp134&r=mig |
| By: | Lena Calahorrano (RWTH Aachen University, Faculty of Business and Economics, Templergraben 64, 52062 Aachen, Germany); Oliver Lorz (RWTH Aachen University, Faculty of Business and Economics, Templergraben 64, 52062 Aachen, Germany) |
| Abstract: | In this note we analyze how aging affects immigration policy. We set up a dynamic political-economy model of representative democracy in which the government of the destination country sets the immigration level to maximize aggregate welfare of the constituency. Aging, i.e. a decline in the growth rate of the native population, has an expansionary effect on immigration. This immigration effect may even overcompensate the initial decline in population growth such that the total labor force grows more strongly and the capital stock per worker declines. We also compare our results to the social planner allocation and to the median-voter equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Demographic change, political economy, immigration policy |
| JEL: | D78 F22 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:200926&r=mig |
| By: | Louis Putterman; David Weil |
| Abstract: | We construct a matrix showing the share of the year 2000 population in every country that is descended from people in different source countries in the year 1500. Using this matrix, we analyze how post-1500 migration has influenced the level of GDP per capita and within-country income inequality in the world today. Indicators of early development such as early state history and the timing of transition to agriculture have much better predictive power for current GDP when one looks at the ancestors of the people who currently live in a country than when one considers the history on that country’s territory, without adjusting for migration. Measures of the ethnic or linguistic heterogeneity of a country’s current population do not predict income inequality as well as measures of the ethnic or linguistic heterogeneity of the current population’s ancestors. An even better predictor of current inequality in a country is the variance of early development history of the country’s inhabitants, with ethnic groups originating in regions having longer histories of agriculture and organized states tending to be at the upper end of a country’s income distribution. However, high within-country variance of early development also predicts higher income per capita, holding constant the average level of early development. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth; Migration; Income Inequality; State History; Linquistic Distance |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2008-15&r=mig |
| By: | Michele Bruni |
| Abstract: | The aim of the research is to introduce a generational stock-flow model to estimate international migration needs and provide long terms demographic forecasts in which migration is an endogenous variables determined by demographic trends and additional labor demand. At the empirical levels, it provides long term scenarios of net migratory balances and demographic trends for Italy. The main conclusion is that the decrease in fertility experienced by Italy, as by all industrialized countries, will not determine a contraction of population and working age population, as forecasted by all national and international statistical institutions, but will generate unprecedented population increases and international migratory flows |
| Keywords: | demography; iimmigration; labour market; economy politics |
| JEL: | J11 J21 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:depeco:0607&r=mig |