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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Onder, Ali Sina (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies); Schlunk, Herwig (Vanderbilt University Law School) |
| Abstract: | Empirical results obtained from the 2000 Census elderly migration data using a general gravity model of migration flows confirm earlier findings of the ‘same sign problem’ in the literature, which means that the elderly both migrate from and to states where taxes are higher. The same sign problem is mainly an aggregation problem, and it can be attributed to the heterogeneity in public policies across states that attract the most migrants as well as across states that lose the most migrants. We propose that in a state-level aggregated dataset, it is possible to control for heterogeneity in states’ public policies by controlling for some characteristics of either the origin or the destination state. In a gravity equation estimation for elderly migration, when controlled for heterogeneity, the same sign problem fades away, and the gravity equation shows clearer patterns for elderly migration. In particular, local amenities, tax exemptions, and low inheritance taxes are shown to be significant variables in attracting the elderly into a state. |
| Keywords: | Tiebout Hypothesis; Migration; Taxation; State Taxes; Amenities |
| JEL: | H24 H25 H31 |
| Date: | 2009–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2009_012&r=mig |
| By: | Akihiro Kawase (Faculty of Economics, Toyo University, 5-28-20 Hakusan, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8606, Japan); Katsuyoshi Nakazawa (Faculty of Economics, Toyo University) |
| Abstract: | Using municipality-level data of Japan, this paper empirically examines how the capacity of long-term care insurance facilities impacts interregional migration of the elderly. We construct net-migration data of the elderly population in each municipality by combining statistics available from existing sources. We find that interregional differences in capacity of long-term care insurance facilities generate strong magnetic effects on migration of the elderly. Our results indicate that family care is difficult and that long-term care insurance facilities are necessary for late-stage elderly in need of long-term care. |
| Keywords: | Long-term care insurance facility, Interregional migration, Welfare magnet |
| JEL: | H75 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:200939&r=mig |
| By: | Inglehart, Ronald (University of Michigan); Norris, Pippa (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | To what extent do migrants carry their culture with them, and to what extent do they acquire the culture of their new home? The answer not only has important political implications; it also helps us understand the extent to which basic cultural values are enduring or malleable; and whether cultural values are traits of individuals or are attributes of a given society. Part I considers theories about the impact of growing social diversity in Western nations. We classify two categories of society: ORIGINS (defined as Islamic Countries of Origin for Muslim migrants, including twenty nations with plurality Muslim populations) and DESTINATIONS (defined as Western Countries of Destination for Muslim migrants, including twenty?two OECD member states with Protestant or Roman Catholic majority populations). Using this framework, we demonstrate that on average, the basic social values of Muslim migrants fall roughly mid?way between those prevailing in their country of origin and their country of destination. We conclude that Muslim migrants do not move to Western countries with rigidly fixed attitudes; instead, they gradually absorb much of the host culture, as assimilation theories suggest. |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp09-007&r=mig |
| By: | Åslund, Olof (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation); Edin, Per-Anders (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation); Fredriksson, Peter (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation); Grönqvist, Hans (SOFI, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | Immigrants typically perform worse than other students in the OECD countries. We examine to what extent this is due to the population characteristics of the neighborhoods that immigrants grow up in. We address this issue using a governmental refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that, for a given share of immigrants in a neighborhood, immigrant school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject’s ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of highly educated adults in the assigned neighborhood increases compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. This magnitude corresponds to a tenth of the gap in student performance between refugee immigrant and native-born children. We also provide tentative evidence that the overall share of immigrants in the neighborhood has a negative effect on GPA. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects; Ethnic enclaves; Immigration; School performance |
| JEL: | I20 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2009–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2009_020&r=mig |
| By: | Manon Domingues Dos Santos (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique); François-Charles Wolff (LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - Université de Nantes : EA4272) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the impact of the human capital background on ethnic educational gaps between second-generation immigrants in France. First, we show that the skill of immigrants explains the main part of the ethnic educational gap between their children. More precisely, if the education of immigrants has a predominant impact on the educational attainment of their children, their assimilation degree, essentially captured by their French fluency or their length of stay in France, also contributes to explain ethnic educational gaps. Secondly, we show that the impact of the immigrants' education on the educational attainment of their children depends on their country of origin, their place of schooling as well as their French proficiency. |
| Date: | 2009–09–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00417879_v1&r=mig |
| By: | Thomas Liebig |
| Abstract: | Evidence from many OECD countries shows that immigrants, in particular recent arrivals, tend to be especially affected by an economic downturn. The available tentative evidence on unemployment suggests that this is also the case in Norway in the current downturn, particularly with respect to the many recent labour migrants from the new EU member countries. Since this can have a lasting effect on their labour market outcomes, it is important that the integration of immigrants remains a priority for policy.<BR>D’après les observations faites dans de nombreux pays de l’OCDE, les immigrés, en particulier les nouveaux arrivants, sont en général particulièrement touchés en cas de détérioration de la conjoncture économique. Les premières informations disponibles sur le chômage permettent de penser que c’est aussi le cas en Norvège au cours de la récession actuelle, en particulier pour les nombreux migrants de travail arrivés récemment. Cela pouvant affecter durablement leurs résultats sur le marché du travail, il est important que l’intégration des immigrés reste une priorité pour les pouvoirs publics. Au cours des années précédentes, le ralentissement de l’économie, les résultats au regard de l’emploi se sont clairement améliorés à la faveur d’une situation économique favorable, et à l’heure actuelle ils sont globalement plutôt positifs par rapport au passé. Même si la forte migration de travail venue d’Europe de l’Est a contribué à la hausse du taux d’emploi de la population immigrée dans son ensemble, les résultats de groupes de migrants de plus longue date se sont également améliorés. |
| Keywords: | Norway, integration, labour market, immigrants |
| JEL: | J12 J21 J61 J62 J68 J7 J8 |
| Date: | 2009–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:94-en&r=mig |
| By: | William R. Kerr (Harvard Business School, Entrepreneurial Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of US inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent citations. Patenting growth is significantly higher in cities and technologies where breakthrough inventions occur after 1984 relative to peer locations that do not experience breakthrough inventions. This growth differential in turn depends on the mobility of the technology's labor force, which we model through the extent that technologies depend upon immigrant scientists and engineers. Spatial adjustments are faster for technologies that depend heavily on immigrant inventors. The results qualitatively con.rm the mechanism of industry migration proposed in models like [Duranton, G., 2007. Urban evolutions: The fast, the slow, and the still. American Economic Review 97, 197.221]. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration, Clusters, Entrepreneurship, Invention, Mobility, Reallocation, R&D, Patents, Scientists, Engineers, Immigration. |
| JEL: | F2 J4 J6 O3 O4 R1 R3 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-020&r=mig |
| By: | Dhimitri Qirjo (Department of Economics, Florida International University) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a political-economic analysis of immigration in a developed country that operates in a direct democracy regime. It shows that, in a monopolistic competitive environment with differentiated capital intensive commodities produced under increasing returns to scale, labor liberalization is more likely to come about in the societies that have more taste for varieties. This is due to the availability of more and cheaper varieties. It also shows that, the workers and capital owners could share the same positive stance toward labor liberalization. It follows that the latter is impossible in a perfect competitive environment. Finally, in a two period dynamic model with forward looking voters, it demonstrates that the median voter is willing to accept fewer immigrants in the first period, in order to preserve her domestic political influence in the second period due to the naturalization of the immigrants accepted in the first period. Using this strategy, the median voter maximizes her gains from immigration by accepting more immigrants in total at the end of the second period. However, the richer the forward looking median voter, the less restricted will be the policy of the host country toward immigration in the first period. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Long Run General Equilibrium, Direct Democracy, Perfect Competition, Monopolistic Competition, Factor Price Equalization. |
| JEL: | D41 D72 F12 F22 J61 O24 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fiu:wpaper:0911&r=mig |
| By: | Baochun Peng (Nottingham University Business School - Malaysia Campus) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that migration could trigger institutional development in the sending country. It is shown that the existence of rent-seeking institutions not only hinders the adoption of a more efficient technology, it also reinforces itself; while the possibility of migrating to a more advanced economy could trigger both institutional change and adoption of the more efficient technology in the sending country. Moreover, the institution-enhancement effect of migration becomes more likely as the difference in the rewards to productive activities in the two economies becomes greater. Some preliminary historical evidences are also presented. |
| Keywords: | Migration; Institution; Rent seeking; Allocation of talent; Democratization |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nom:nubsmc:2009-08&r=mig |
| By: | Clemens, Michael (Center for Global Development); Montenegro, Claudio (World Bank and Universidad de Chile); Pritchett, Lant (Harvard University and Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the "place premium"--the wage gain that accrues to foreign workers who arrive to work in the United States. First, we estimate the predicted, purchasing-power adjusted wages of people inside and outside the United States who are otherwise observably identical--with the same country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural or urban residence. We use new and uniquely rich micro-data on the wages and characteristics of over two million individual formal-sector wage-earners in 43 countries (including the US). Second, we examine the extent to which these wage ratios for observably equivalent workers may overstate the gains to a marginal mover because movers may be positively selected on unobservable productivity in their home country. New evidence for nine of the countries, combined with a range of existing evidence, suggests that this overstatement can be significant, but is typically modest in magnitude. Third, we estimate the degree to which policy barriers to labor movement in and of themselves sustain the place premium, by bounding the premia observed under self-selected migration alone. Finally, we show that the policy-induced portion of the place premium in wages represents one of the largest remaining price distortions in any global market; is much larger than wage discrimination in spatially integrated markets; and makes labor mobility capable of reducing households' poverty at the margin by much more than any known in situ intervention. |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp09-004&r=mig |
| By: | Russell Smyth; Ingrid Nielsen; Qingguo Zhai |
| Abstract: | Existing research applying the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) in China is restricted to urban and rural samples. There are no studies for Chinese off-farm migrants. The specific aims of this study are (a) ascertain whether Chinese off-farm are satisfied with their lives; (b) investigate the equivalence of the PWI in terms of its psychometric properties; and (c) examine whether the responses to the PWI from participants falls within the narrow range predicted by the 'Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis???. The PWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability, validity and sensibility and was consistent with previous studies for Western and non-Western samples. The data revealed a moderate level of subjective well-being (PWI score = 62.6). While Chinese off-farm migrants lead hard lives, the PWI was within the normative range predicted for Chinese societies by the 'Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis'. A likely explanation for this finding rests with the circular nature of migration in China. When China's offfarm migrants find it too difficult to cope in the cities, most have the fallback position that they can return to their homes in the countryside. This option provides an external buffer to minimize the inherent challenges of life which would otherwise impinge on the life satisfaction of China's off-farm migrants. |
| Keywords: | China, Personal Wellbeing Index, Subjective Wellbeing |
| Date: | 2009–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:druwps:2009-02&r=mig |