|
on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Bollard, Albert (Stanford University); McKenzie, David (World Bank); Morten, Melanie (Yale University); Rapoport, Hillel (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | Two of the most salient trends surrounding the issue of migration and development over the last two decades are the large rise in remittances, and an increased flow of skilled migration. However, recent literature based on cross-country regressions has claimed that more educated migrants remit less, leading to concerns that further increases in skilled migration will hamper remittance growth. We revisit the relationship between education and remitting behavior using microdata from surveys of immigrants in eleven major destination countries. The data show a mixed pattern between education and the likelihood of remitting, and a strong positive relationship between education and the amount remitted conditional on remitting. Combining these intensive and extensive margins gives an overall positive effect of education on the amount remitted. The microdata then allow investigation as to why the more educated remit more. We find the higher income earned by migrants, rather than characteristics of their family situations explains much of the higher remittances. |
| Keywords: | remittances, migration, brain drain, education |
| JEL: | O15 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4534&r=mig |
| By: | Bijwaard, Govert (NIDI - Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute) |
| Abstract: | In this empirical paper we assess how labour market transitions and out- and repeated migration of immigrants are interrelated. We estimate a multi-state multiple spell competing risks model with four states: employed, unemployed receiving benefits, out-of-the-labour market (no benefits) and abroad. For the analysis we use data on recent labour immigrants to The Netherlands, which implies that all migrants are (self)-employed at the time of arrival. We find that many migrants leave the country after a period of no-income. Employment characteristics and the country of origin play an important role in explaining the dynamics. Microsimulations of synthetic cohorts reveal that many migrants experience unemployment spells, but ten years after arrival only a few are unemployed. Scenarios based on microsimulation indicate that the Credit Crunch will not only increase the unemployment among migrants but also departure from the country. Scenarios also indicate that an increase in the number of migrants from the EU accession countries will lead to higher labour market and migration dynamics. Finally, based on microsimulation we do not expect that the recent simplification of the entry of high income migrants will have a lasting effect, as many of those migrants leave fast. |
| Keywords: | migration dynamics, labour market transitions, competing risks, immigrant assimilation |
| JEL: | F22 J61 C41 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4530&r=mig |
| By: | Ortega, Francesc (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | This paper contains three important contributions to the literature on international migrations. First, it compiles a new dataset on migration flows (and stocks) and on immigration laws for 14 OECD destination countries and 74 sending countries for each year over the period 1980-2005. Second, it extends the empirical model of migration choice across multiple destinations, developed by Grogger and Hanson (2008), by allowing for unobserved individual heterogeneity between migrants and non-migrants. We use the model to derive a pseudo-gravity empirical specification of the economic and legal determinants of international migration. Our estimates clearly show that bilateral migration flows are increasing in the income per capita gap between origin and destination. We also find that bilateral flows decrease when destination countries adopt stricter immigration laws. Third, we estimate the impact of immigration flows on employment, investment and productivity in the receiving OECD countries using as instruments the "push" factors in the gravity equation. Specifically, we use the characteristics of the sending countries that affect migration and their changes over time, interacted with bilateral migration costs. We find that immigration increases employment, with no evidence of crowding-out of natives, and that investment responds rapidly and vigorously. The inflow of immigrants does not seem to reduce capital intensity nor total factor productivity in the short-run or in the long run. These results imply that immigration increases the total GDP of the receiving country in the short-run one-for-one, without affecting average wages and average income per person. |
| JEL: | E25 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:ucdeco:09-6&r=mig |
| By: | Olof Åslund (Uppsala University); Anders Böhlmark (Institute for social research (SOFI) and CReAM); Oskar Nordström Skans (IFAU, IZA and Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | The paper studies childhood migrants and examines how age at migration affects their ensuing integration at the residential market, the labor market, and the marriage market. We use population-wide Swedish data and compare outcomes as adults among siblings arriving at different ages in order to ensure that the results can be given a causal interpretation. The results show that the children who arrived at a higher age had substantially lower shares of natives among their neighbors, coworkers and spouses as adults. The effects are mostly driven by higher exposure to immigrants of similar ethnic origin, in particular at the marriage market. There are also non-trivial effects on employment, but a more limited impact on education and wages. We also analyze children of migrants and show that parents’ time in the host country before child birth matters, which implies that the outcomes of the social integration process are inherited. Inherited integration has a particularly strong impact on the marriage patterns of females. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, integration, segregation, age at migration, siblings. |
| JEL: | J12 J15 J13 J01 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:200927&r=mig |
| By: | Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Dustmann, Christian (University College London); Glitz, Albrecht (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Manning, Alan (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | A central concern about immigration is the integration into the labour market, not only of the first generation, but also of subsequent generations. Little comparative work exists for Europe’s largest economies. France, Germany and the UK have all become, perhaps unwittingly, countries with large immigrant populations albeit with very different ethnic compositions. Today, the descendants of these immigrants live and work in their parents’ destination countries. This paper presents and discusses comparative evidence on the performance of first- and second-generation immigrants in these countries in terms of education, earnings, and employment. |
| Keywords: | immigration, second-generation immigrants, integration |
| JEL: | J61 F22 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4514&r=mig |
| By: | Ortega, Francesc (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the political sustainability of the welfare state in an environment where immigration is the main demographic force and where governments are able to influence the size and skill composition of immigration flows. Specifically, I present a dynamic political-economy model where both income redistribution and immigration policy are chosen by majority vote. Voters take into account their children's prospects of economic mobility and the future political consequences of today's policies. Over time, the skill distribution evolves due to intergenerational skill upgrading and immigration. I consider three immigration and citizenship regimes. In the first, immigrants stay permanently in the country and citizenship is obtained by birthplace (jus soli). In the second regime immigration is also permanent but citizenship is passed only by bloodline (jus sanguinis). In the third regime immigrants are only admitted temporarily and cannot vote. Our main finding is that under permanent migration and jus soli there exist equilibria where income redistribution is sustained indefinitely, despite constant skill upgrading in the population. However, this is not the case in the other two regimes. The crucial insight is that unskilled voters trade off the lower wages from larger unskilled immigration with the increased political support for redistributive transfers provided by the children of the current immigrants. In contrast, in the regimes where immigrants and their children do not gain the right to vote, unskilled voters oppose any unskilled immigration and political support for income transfers vanishes. We argue that these mechanisms have important implications for the ongoing debates over comprehensive immigration reform in the US and elsewhere. |
| Keywords: | immigration, citizenship, redistributive policies, political economy |
| JEL: | F22 I2 J62 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4528&r=mig |
| By: | Thomas Liebig; Sarah Widmaier |
| Abstract: | This document provides a first comparative overview of the presence and outcomes of the children of immigrants in the labour markets of OECD countries, based on a collection of data from 16 OECD countries with large immigrant populations. Its key findings are the following: • In about half of all OECD countries, children of immigrants - both native-born offspring of immigrants and foreign-born who immigrated before adulthood with their parents - account for ten or more percent of young adults (aged 20-29) in the labour market. • Most children of immigrants have parents from low- and middle-income countries, and the share with parents from such countries is larger among foreign-born children than among the nativeborn offspring of immigrants. This is a result of the diversification of migration flows over the past 20 years. • Among the native-born children of immigrants in European OECD countries, Turkey is the single most important country of parental origin, followed by Morocco. When comparing the countries of parental origin for the native- and the foreign-born children of immigrants, one observes in the European OECD countries a strong decline in the importance of the origin countries of the post-World War II wave of labour migration, in particular Turkey but also Morocco, Italy, Portugal and Pakistan. • In all countries except Germany and Switzerland, a large majority of the native-born children of immigrants have obtained the nationality of their countries of residence. • The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has demonstrated lower assessment results for the children of immigrants in most European OECD countries. There are close links between PISA outcomes and educational attainment levels. In the countries in which children of migrants have large gaps in PISA-scores vis-à-vis children of natives, children of immigrants are also strongly overrepresented among those who are low-educated. • One observes a clear difference between the non-European OECD countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) on the one hand and European OECD countries on the other hand. In the former, the children of migrants have education and labour market outcomes that tend to be at least at par with those of the children of natives. In the European OECD countries (with the exception of Switzerland), both education and labour market outcomes of the children of immigrants tend to be much less favourable. • Part of the differences in labour market outcomes observed in most European OECD countries is due to the fact that the children of immigrants tend to have a lower educational attainment than the children of natives. However, significant gaps remain in many of these countries even after correcting for differences in average educational attainment. • The remaining gaps are particularly large for the offspring of migrants from Turkey and from certain non-OECD countries such as Morocco. In all countries, children with parents from middle-and low-income countries have lower outcomes than children of immigrants from highincome countries. The differences are particularly large for young immigrant women. • On average over the OECD countries for which data are available, the children of immigrants have an unemployment rate that is about 1.6 times higher than that of the children of natives, for both genders. The children of immigrants also have lower employment rates – the gaps compared with the children of natives are about 8 percentage points for men and about 13 percentage points for women. • For women, one observes much better results for the native children of immigrants than for young immigrants, suggesting that having been fully raised and educated in the country of residence brings some additional benefit. However, this is not observed for men, where the native-born children of immigrants do not seem to fare better than the young immigrants, particularly after accounting for the lower educational attainment of the latter group. • The less favourable picture for the female children of migrants compared with their male counterparts is less clear-cut after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, in particular marital status and number of children. Part of the “double disadvantage” for the female offspring of immigrants seems to be due to the fact that in the age range under consideration (20-29 years), they are overrepresented among those who are (already) married and have children. Indeed, once controlling for this, native-born women who have parents from the Maghreb region or Southern Europe, as well those with Turkish parental origin, tend to have higher employment rates - relative to comparable natives - than their male counterparts. • When in employment, children of immigrants are in occupations similar to those of the children of natives. They are also widely spread throughout the economy, but tend to remain underrepresented in the public sector.<BR>Les principales conclusions qui s’en dégagent sont résumées ci-dessous. • Dans la moitié environ de l’ensemble des pays de l’OCDE, les enfants d’immigrés (aussi bien ceux nés dans le pays hôte de parents immigrés que ceux nés à l’étranger et qui ont immigré avec leurs parents avant d’avoir atteint l’âge adulte) représentent au moins dix pour cent des jeunes adultes (jeunes âgés de 20 à 29 ans) présents sur le marché du travail. • Les parents des enfants immigrés sont le plus souvent originaires de pays à revenu faible ou intermédiaire, et la proportion d’enfants dont les parents sont dans ce cas est plus forte parmi ceux qui sont nés à l’étranger que parmi les enfants nés dans le pays hôte. • Parmi les enfants nés dans un pays européen de l’OCDE de parents immigrés, ceux dont les parents sont originaires de Turquie sont les plus nombreux, suivis des enfants d’origine marocaine. Quand on compare les pays d’origine des parents immigrés d’enfants nés dans le pays hôte et d’enfants nés à l’étranger, on observe, dans les pays européens de l’OCDE, un fort recul de l’importance des pays d’origine correspondant à la vague de migration de travail de l’après- Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Cette observation concerne notamment la Turquie, mais aussi le Maroc, l’Italie, le Portugal et le Pakistan. • Dans tous les pays hormis l’Allemagne et la Suisse, une grande majorité des enfants nés sur le territoire de parents immigrés ont obtenu la nationalité de leur pays de résidence. • Le Programme international de l’OCDE pour le suivi des acquis des élèves (PISA) a démontré que, dans la plupart des pays européens de l’Organisation, les enfants d’immigrés obtenaient de piètres résultats lors des évaluations. Il existe un lien étroit entre les acquis scolaires mesurés par PISA et les niveaux d’études atteints. Dans les pays où l’on relève d’importantes disparités entre les enfants d’immigrés et les enfants de parents autochtones du point de vue des notes obtenues lors des tests PISA, les premiers sont aussi fortement surreprésentés parmi les personnes peu instruites. • On relève une nette différence entre les pays non européens de l’OCDE (Australie, Canada, États-Unis et Nouvelle-Zélande), d’une part, et les pays européens de l’Organisation, d’autre part. Dans le premier groupe, les enfants d’immigrés affichent généralement, au regard de l’éducation et de l’emploi, des résultats au moins égaux à ceux des enfants de parents autochtones. Mais dans les pays européens de l’OCDE (à l’exception de la Suisse), les résultats des enfants d’immigrés au regard de l’éducation et de l’emploi sont généralement moins bons. |
| JEL: | J13 J15 J21 L29 |
| Date: | 2009–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:97-en&r=mig |
| By: | Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis and CESifo, Munich) |
| Abstract: | A series of recent influential papers has emphasized that in order to identify the wage effects of immigration one needs to consider national effects by skill level. The criticism to the so called "area approach" is based on the fact that native workers are mobile and would eliminate, in the long-run, local wage effects in a national market. A second criticism is that the small sizes of many local labor markets induces large measurement errors in the share of immigrants and attenuation bias in the estimates of their effects. In this paper we show that a production-function-based approach with skill differentiation and integrated national markets has predictions on the employment effect of immigrants at the local (state) level. Hence if we look at the employment (rather than wage) response to immigration by state, we can still estimate the substitutability-complemetariety between natives and immigrants and infer whether, other things constant, immigrants stimulate or depress the demand for native labor. Moreover, to avoid measurement error issues, we only consider California, as it is the largest state and the largest recipient of immigrants. To address further endogeneity issues we use demographic characteristics of Mexican migrants to the US to predict immigration by skill level in California. Looking at immigration between 1960 and 2005 we find that: i) the assumption of a national integrated labor market by skill holds and ii) immigration did not have any negative employment effect on natives in any education-experience group in California. The estimated effects support the hypothesis that natives and immigrants in the same education-experience group are not perfectly substitutable. Specializing in different tasks and stimulating efficiency are the other likely mechanisms through which immigrants stimulate (rather than hurt) employment of natives. |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 R13 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:ucdeco:09-13&r=mig |
| By: | Peri, Giovanni (Universitat Rovira Virgili); Iranzo, Susana (University of California, Davis and CESifo, Munich) |
| Abstract: | The remarkable increase in trade flows and in migratory flows of highly educated people are two important features of globalization of the last decades. This paper extends a two-country model of inter- and intra-industry trade to a rich environment featuring technological differences, skill differences and the possibility of international labor mobility. The model is used to explain the patterns of trade and migration as countries remove barriers to trade and to labor mobility. We parameterize the model to match the features of the Western and Eastern European members of the EU and analyze first the effects of the trade liberalization which occurred between 1989 and 2004, and then the gains and losses from migration which are expected to occur if legal barriers to labor mobility are substantially reduced. The lower barriers to migration would result in significant migration of skilled workers from Eastern European countries. Interestingly, this would not only benefit the migrants and most Western European workers but, via trade, it would also benefit the workers remaining in Eastern Europe. |
| JEL: | F12 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:ucdeco:09-7&r=mig |
| By: | James T. Bang; Aniruddha Mitra |
| Abstract: | We use a fixed effects panel data model to investigate the impact of institutions of governance on the educational attainment of immigrants to the United States over the period 1988 – 2000. Distinguishing between the quality and stability of political institutions in the countries of origin, we find that the two characteristics of institutional structure have conflicting impacts on the nature of brain drain. Immigrants from countries with a higher quality of political institutions tend to be better educated, on the average, than immigrants from countries with institutions of lower quality. However, immigrants from countries with greater political instability tend to be better educated than immigrants from countries with more stable governments. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, institutions, political instability, brain drain |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 J64 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0919&r=mig |
| By: | Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton); Zenou, Yves (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate whether return migrants are more likely to become entrepreneurs than non-migrants. We develop a theoretical search model that puts forward the trade off faced by returnees since overseas migration provides an opportunity for human and physical capital accumulation but, at the same time, may lead to a loss of social capital back home. We test the predictions of the model using data from Egypt. We find that, even after controlling for the endogeneity of the temporary migration decision, an overseas returnee is more likely to become an entrepreneur than a non-migrant. Although migrants lose their original social networks whilst overseas, savings and human capital accumulation acquired abroad over-compensate for this loss. Our results also suggest that social networks have no significant impact on becoming entrepreneurs for returnees but matter for non-migrants. |
| Keywords: | social capital, entrepreneurship, selection, savings |
| JEL: | L26 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4541&r=mig |
| By: | Olof Åslund (Uppsala University); Per-Anders Edin (IFAU and Uppsala University); Peter Fredriksson (IFAU and Uppsala University); Hans Grönqvist (Institute for social research (SOFI), University of Stockholm) |
| 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: | J15 I20 Z13 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:200928&r=mig |
| By: | Ortega, Francesc (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Polavieja, Javier G. (IMDEA) |
| Abstract: | This paper re-examines the role of labor-market competition as a determinant of attitudes toward immigration. We claim two main contributions. First, we use more sophisticated measures of the degree of exposure to competition from immigrants than previously done. Specifically, we focus on the protection derived from investments in job-specific human capital and from specialization in communication-intensive jobs, in addition to formal education. Second, we explicitly account for the potential endogeneity arising from job search. Methodologically, we estimate, by instrumental variables, an econometric model that allows for heterogeneity at the individual, regional, and country level. Drawing on the 2004 European Social Survey, we obtain three main results. First, our estimates show that individuals that are currently employed in less exposed jobs are relatively more pro-immigration. This is true for both our new measures of exposure. Second, we show that the protection granted by job-specific human capital is clearly distinct from the protection granted by formal education. Yet the positive effect of education on pro-immigration attitudes is greatly reduced when we control for the degree of communication intensity of respondents' occupations. Third, OLS estimates are biased in a direction that suggests that natives respond to immigration by switching to less exposed jobs. The latter finding provides indirect support for the endogenous job specialization hypothesis postulated by Peri and Sparber (2009). |
| Keywords: | immigration attitudes, labor market, job-specific human capital, communication skills, international migration |
| JEL: | F1 F22 J61 J31 R13 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4519&r=mig |
| By: | Rémi Bazillier (LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS : UMR6221 - Université d'Orléans); Yasser Moullan (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | We study in this paper the interactions between migration rates and the level of labour standards. We use an augmentee version of the Grogger and Hanson (2008) model, adding the level of working conditions into the specification. Our hypothesis is that the differential of working conditions may be a complementary determinant of migration. In a first time, we test the influence of labour standards in countries of origin using a database on emigration rates built by Defoort (2006) for the period 1975-1995. For labour standards, we built an original index with a temporal dimension. We find that labour standards in the source countries does not have a significant impact on the probability of moving abroad. In a second time, we use a bilateral migration database built by Marfouk and Docquier (2004) in order to test the influence of labour standards in destination countries. If labour standards in the source countries do not have a significant impact on migration flows, level of labour conditions in destination countries have multiple effects on bilateral migration flows. Social protection or protection of collective relations have a positive impact on migration, while job and employment protection laws have the opposite effect. We also find that high-skilled workers are much more sensitive to social security benefits while low skilled workers are more attracted by a protective job and employment legislation. |
| Keywords: | Migration, labour standards, brain-drain, labour markets. |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00429730_v1&r=mig |
| By: | Ozgen, Ceren (VU University Amsterdam); Nijkamp, Peter (VU University Amsterdam); Poot, Jacques (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | We compare a set of econometric studies that measure the effect of net internal migration in neoclassical models of long-run real income convergence and derive 67 comparable effect sizes. The precision-weighted estimate of beta convergence is about 2.7%. An increase in the net migration rate of a region by one percentage point in increases the per capita income growth rate in that region on average by about 0.1 percentage points, thus suggesting an impact of net migration that is more consistent with endogenous self-reinforcing growth than with neoclassical convergence. Introducing a net migration variable in a growth regression increases the estimate of beta convergence slightly. Studies that use panel models or IV estimation methods yield smaller coefficients of net migration in growth regressions, while the opposite holds for regressions controlling for high-skilled migration. |
| Keywords: | internal migration, economic growth, convergence, meta-analysis, neoclassical model, regional disparities |
| JEL: | O15 O18 R23 R11 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4522&r=mig |
| By: | Schluter, Christian (University of Southampton); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | We consider the issue of illegal migration from Mexico to the US, and examine whether the lack of legal status causally impacts on outcomes, specifically wages and remitting behavior. These outcomes are of particular interest given the extent of legal and illegal migration, and the resulting financial flows. We formalize this question and highlight the principal empirical problem using a potential outcome framework with endogenous selection. The selection bias is captured by a control function, which is estimated non-parametrically. The framework for remitting is extended to allow for endogenous regressors (e.g. wages). We propose a new re-parametrisation of the control function, which is linear in case of a normal error structure, and test linearity. Using Mexican Migration project data, we find considerable and robust illegality effects on wages, the penalty being about 12% in the 1980s and 22% in the 1990s. For the latter period, the selection bias is not created by a normal error structure; wrongly imposing normality overestimates the illegality effect on wages by 50%, while wrongly ignoring selection leads to a 50% underestimate. In contrast to these wage penalties, legal status appears to have mixed effects on remitting behavior. |
| Keywords: | non-parametric estimation, control functions, selection, counterfactuals, illegality effects, illegal migration, intermediate outcomes, Mexican Migration Project |
| JEL: | J61 J30 J40 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4527&r=mig |
| By: | Nuno Gonçalves (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Ana Paula Africano (CEF.UP and Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to analyse the link between immigration and trade among EU countries, particularly, in the context of the enlargement in 2004. The study tests if increasing stock of immigrants from New Member States has any impact on the exports of EU-15 to those markets, or not. To that end the study applies an extended gravity model of international trade to panel data for three countries – Germany, Denmark and Portugal. The results show that increasing immigration from New Member States has a positive impact on the exports of both Portugal and Denmark. The results also suggest that less restrictive immigration policies have a positive impact on exports. Finally these results do not hold in the case of Germany. |
| Keywords: | Comércio internacional, imigração, União Europeia, integração económica, modelo gravitacional |
| JEL: | C33 F14 F15 F22 O24 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:340&r=mig |
| By: | David Card (University of California Berkeley); Christian Dustmann (University College London); Ian Preston (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Economists are often puzzled by the stronger public opposition to immigration than trade, since the two policies have symmetric effects on wages. Unlike trade, however, immigration changes the composition of the local population, imposing potential externalities on natives. While previous studies have focused on fiscal spillovers, a broader class of externalities arise because people value the ‘compositional amenities’ associated with the characteristics of their neighbors and co-workers. In this paper we present a new method for quantifying the relative importance of these amenities in shaping attitudes toward immigration. We use data for 21 countries in the 2002 European Social Survey, which included a series of questions on the economic and social impacts of immigration, as well as on the desirability of increasing or reducing immigrant inflows. We find that individual attitudes toward immigration policy reflect a combination of concerns over conventional economic impacts (i.e., on wages and taxes) and compositional amenities, with substantially more weight on composition effects. Most of the difference in attitudes to immigration between more and less educated natives is attributable to heightened concerns over compositional amenities among the less-educated. |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:200929&r=mig |
| By: | Lofstrom, Magnus (Public Policy Institute of California) |
| Abstract: | Low-skilled workers do not fare well in today's skill intensive economy and their opportunities continue to diminish. Given that individuals in this challenging skill segment of the workforce are more likely to have poor experiences in the labor market, and hence incur greater public expenses, it is particularly important to seek and evaluate their labor market options. Utilizing data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic returns to business ownership among low-skilled workers and addresses the essential question of whether self-employment is a good option for low-skilled individuals that policymakers might consider encouraging. The analysis reveal substantial differences in the role of self-employment among low-skilled workers across gender and nativity – women and immigrants are shown to be of particular importance both from the perspectives of trends and policy relevance. We find that although the returns to low-skilled self-employment among men are relatively high we find that wage/salary employment is a substantially more financially rewarding option for most women. These findings raise the question of why low-skilled women enter self-employment. Our business start-up results are consistent, but not conclusive, with lack of affordable child care options and limited labor market opportunities in the wage/salary sector as motivating native born women to enter self-employment. We do not find empirical evidence of similar constraints among immigrant women. |
| Keywords: | self-employment, entrepreneurship, low-skill, women, immigrants |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J31 L26 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4539&r=mig |
| By: | Smyth, Emer; Darmody, Merike; McGinnity, Frances; Byrne, Delma |
| Keywords: | qec |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:rb2009/2/6&r=mig |
| By: | Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (IMDEA Ciencias Sociales); Vassilis Tselios (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) |
| Abstract: | Relatively little attention has been paid to the role that externalities play in determining the pecuniary returns to migration. This paper addresses this gap, using microeconomic data for more than 100,000 individuals living in the European Union (EU) for the period 1994-2001 in order to analyse whether the individual economic returns to education vary between migrants and non-migrants and whether any observed differences in earnings between migrants and locals are affected by household and/or geographical (regional and interregional) externalities. The results point out that while education is a fundamental determinant of earnings, European labour markets – contrary to expectations – do not discriminate in the returns to education between migrants and non-migrants. The paper also finds that household, regional, and interregional externalities influence the economic returns to education, but that they do so in a similar way for local, intranational, and supra-national migrants. The results are robust to the introduction of a large number of individual, household, and regional controls. |
| Keywords: | individual earnings; migration; educational attainment; externalities; household; regions; Europe |
| Date: | 2009–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2009-15&r=mig |
| By: | Angelucci, Manuela (University of Arizona); De Giorgi, Giacomo (Stanford University); Rangel, Marcos A. (Harris School, University of Chicago); Rasul, Imran (University College London) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents how the structure of extended family networks in rural Mexico relates to the poverty and inequality of the village of residence. Using the Hispanic naming convention, we construct within-village extended family networks in 504 poor rural villages. Family networks are larger (both in the number of members and as a share of the village population) and out-migration is lower the poorer and the less unequal the village of residence. Our results are consistent with the extended family being a source of informal insurance to its members. |
| Keywords: | extended family network, migration, village inequality, village marginality |
| JEL: | J12 O12 O17 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4499&r=mig |
| By: | Andersson Joona, Pernilla (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS); Wadensjö, Eskil (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS) |
| Abstract: | Self-employment is very common among some immigrant groups in Sweden and many of them hire co-nationals in their firms. One reason might be that they want to give newly arrived co-nationals the possibility to earn an income. But what are the consequences for the employees of being employed by a co-national? This paper analyzes the impact on labour income and future employment prospects of being employed by self-employed co-nationals shortly after arrival to Sweden. We find that immigrants in this group have substantially lower incomes than newly arrived immigrants with other forms of employment. We also find that they are less likely to work as employees in the private sector (other than being employed by a self-employed) in the future and are much more likely to become self-employed. |
| Keywords: | ethnic economies; self-employment; income |
| JEL: | J15 J23 J31 L26 |
| Date: | 2009–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2009_011&r=mig |
| By: | Lozano, Fernando A. (Pomona College); Kossoudji, Sherrie (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | Children adopted from abroad are an immigrant group about which little is known. According to the U.S. Census more than one and a half million children living in the U.S. are adopted, with fifteen percent of them born abroad. In fact more than twenty thousand adopted orphans from abroad enter the country each year. The families who adopt these orphans are mostly white, wealthy, and well educated (Kossoudji, 2008). What are the characteristics of children who are adopted from abroad and what incentives drive families to adopt them? In this paper we use the 2000 census to illuminate the landscape of international adoption. We address three issues: 1) How do the demographic characteristics of the children adopted from abroad change as other countries open and shut the door to inter-country adoptions, changing the supply of available children? 2) U.S. born parents and foreign-born parents may have different incentives to adopt. How are these incentives reflected in the characteristics of the children they adopt? 3) What explains differences in the estimates of foreign-born adopted children in the Census and the number of visas granted by the State Department? |
| Keywords: | immigrant children, international adoption |
| JEL: | J13 J12 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4547&r=mig |
| By: | Carol McAusland; Peter J. Kuhn |
| Abstract: | We introduce international mobility of knowledge workers into a model of Nash equilibrium IPR policy choice among countries. We show that governments have incentives to use IPRs in a bidding war for global talent, resulting in Nash equilibrium IPRs that can be too high, rather than too low, from a global welfare perspective. These incentives become stronger as developing countries grow in size and wealth, thus allowing them to prevent the 'poaching' of their 'brains' by larger, wealthier markets. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O34 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15486&r=mig |