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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Humberto Llavador; Angel Solano-García |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the political economy of immigration when the salient electoral issue is the level of immigrants and the relevant immigration policy is the expenditure in immigration control. We consider that immigration affects voters’ welfare through economic and non economic factors. We model political competition à la Wittman with the ideology of parties endogenously determined at equilibrium. Numerical simulations provide the levels of immigration proposed by the two parties and the composition of parties’ constituencies. At equilibrium, parties propose different levels of immigration, located to the left and to the right of the median voter’s ideal point. We find that improvements in the efficacy of immigration control increases the probability of victory of the party proposing a tighter immigration policy and decreases the disparity in parties’ policy proposals. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, ideological parties, unskilled and skilled labor |
| JEL: | J61 F22 D72 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1169&r=mig |
| By: | Gil S. Epstein (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University); Avi Weiss (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents some of the many issues involved in the granting of an amnesty to illegal immigrants. Complementing studies by Chau (2001, 2003), Karlson and Katz (2003) and Gang and Yun (2006), we consider government behavior with respect to allocations on limiting infiltration (border control) and apprehending infiltrators (internal control) and with respect to the granting of amnesties, the timing of amnesties, and limitations on eligibility for those amnesties. We demonstrate the effects of government actions on allocations and the flow of immigrants, and how the interactions between these factors combine to yield an optimal amnesty policy. We also consider two extensions – intertemporal transfers of policing funds and “fuzziness” in declarations regarding eligibility for an amnesty aimed at apprehending and deporting undesirables. |
| Keywords: | Amnesty, Immigration, Illegal Immigration, Border Controls, Internal Controls |
| JEL: | J61 J68 H59 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2009-24&r=mig |
| By: | Eva Nurwita (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | Migration is an unavoidable problem for economic development in third world countries. Indonesia is an archipelagic country with high viscosity of its population’s internal migration. Over flooding wave of internal migration from periphery region to the core of growth poles increases the spatial disparities between regions. Not only for the labor force at their productive age, empirical evidences revealed the fact that the wave also involved children to work as a child labor. This research tries to estimate how does poverty in periphery determines the wave of migration toward urban agglomeration region as their core. Using data from the Indonesian Census 2000 for Java Island, global spatial effect and local statistics was estimated by spatial econometrics method. |
| Keywords: | Child Labor, Internal Migration, Spatial Econometrics |
| JEL: | O15 J13 C31 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:200912&r=mig |
| By: | Lídia Farré (Universitat d’Alacant); Libertad González (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Francesc Ortega (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of Spain’s large recent immigration wave on the labor supply of highly skilled native women. We hypothesize that female immigration led to an increase in the supply of affordable household services, such as housekeeping and child or elderly care. As a result, i) native females with high earnings potential were able to increase their labor supply, and ii) the effects were larger on skilled women whose labor supply was heavily constrained by family responsibilities. Our evidence indicates that over the last decade immigration led to an important expansion in the size of the household services sector and to an increase in the labor supply of women in high-earning occupations (of about 2 hours per week). We also find that immigration allowed skilled native women to return to work sooner after childbirth, to stay in the workforce longer when having elderly dependents in the household, and to postpone retirement. Methodologically, we show that the availability of even limited Registry data makes it feasible to conduct the analysis using quarterly household survey data, as opposed to having to rely on the decennial Census. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Labor supply, Fertility, Retirement, Household services |
| JEL: | J61 J22 J13 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:200916&r=mig |
| By: | Kangasniemi, Mari; Mas, Matilde; Robinson, Catherine; Serrano, Lorenzo |
| Abstract: | Increased internationalization over the past 20 years has meant that labour has become increasingly mobile, and whilst employment and earnings effects have been extensively analysed in host and source nations, the implications for firm and industry performance have been largely ignored. This paper explores the direct economic consequences of immigration on host nations’ productivity performance at a sectoral level. We consider its impact in two very different European countries, Spain and the UK. Whilst the UK has traditionally had a substantial in-flow of migration, for Spain, the phenomenon is much more recent. The paper provides an overview of the role played by immigration on per capita income, highlighting the importance of demographic differences. We then go on to analyze the role of migration on productivity using two different approaches: i) growth accounting methodology and ii) econometric estimation of a production function. Our findings indicate that migration has had very different implications for Spain and the UK, migrants being more productive than natives in the UK but less productive than natives in Spain. This may in part be a function of different immigration policies, particularly related to the skill requirements on entry, but also in part a feature of the host nations’ ability to ‘absorb’ foreign labour. |
| Keywords: | Key words: migration; productivity; industries |
| JEL: | O40 J30 J20 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17212&r=mig |
| By: | Lien, Gudbrand; Bergfjord, Ole Jakob; Hoveid, Oyvind |
| Abstract: | This paper studies what causes (small-scale) farmers to leave their farms and typically move to urban areas. A data set is constructed by linking survey results with financial data, and the data set is analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques. Our results indicate that, while existence and size of future farm production is important, there is also a difference between farmers who primarily have financial objectives for their farming, and those who have more lifestyle oriented objectives. The latter group is, everything else being equal, more likely to stay on the farm. This could imply that, if preventing migration from rural to urban areas is a policy objective, production support schemes will be effective for some groups, but will be less effective for the group with lifestyle objectives. If this group is to be encouraged to stay on the countryside, policies directed at improving the general living conditions in the local community are likely to be more effective than specific support schemes related to agricultural production. |
| Keywords: | migration, farmer objectives, agricultural policy, structural equation modelling, Agricultural and Food Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2009–08–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa111:52849&r=mig |
| By: | Guillaume Marois |
| Abstract: | Quebec, as most Western societies, is facing the ageing of its population, producing many economic, political and social impacts. One solution often considered is to rely on immigration to reduce, delay or even counter certain consequences. For this purpose, replacement migration is sometimes seen as a solution: it aims to establish the number of immigrants needed to reach specific demographic targets, which are, in this study, to prevent total population decline, to prevent working-age population decline and to prevent the percentage of those 65 years and over from exceeding 25% of the total population. The results show that it could be possible for Quebec to prevent the decline of its population if fertility does not decrease further and if immigration is well managed; that is replacement migration would not be excessively high. However, raising the immigration level too quickly could impede reaching this objective. The decline of the population aged between 20 and 64 years is inevitable: whatever the level of fertility, even if migration were much higher for the next two decades than has been planned for Quebec. Finally, immigration has no significant impact on the age structure of a population: it is quite unrealistic to expect this component to prevent the percentage of those 65 years and over in the total population from exceeding 25%. The only way to reach this objective is a rapid increase of fertility to the replacement level. This means that immigration can in no way prevent the ageing of the population or have a significant impact on the process. |
| Keywords: | Replacement migration, Quebec, immigration, demography, population, ageing, workforce, fertility, projections |
| JEL: | J11 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:sedapp:252&r=mig |