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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Fujita, Masahisa |
| Abstract: | Is the paradise of effortless communication the ideal environment for knowledge creation? Or, can the development of local culture in regions raise knowledge productivity compared to a single region with a unitary culture? In other words, can a real technological increase in the cost of collaboration and the cost of public knowledge flow between regions, resulting in cultural differentiation between regions, increase welfare? In our framework, a culture is a set of ideas held exclusively by residents of a location. In general in our model, the equilibrium path generates separate cultures in different regions. When we compare this to the situation where all workers are resident in one region, R & D workers become too homogeneous and there is only one culture. As a result, equilibrium productivity in the creation of new knowledge is lower relative to the situation when there are multiple cultures and workers are more diverse. |
| Keywords: | knowledge creation; knowledge diversity; ideas and culture |
| JEL: | Z1 D83 O31 |
| Date: | 2011–01–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27997&r=mig |
| By: | Philipp Ager (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Markus Brückner (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the large inflow of immigrants to the US during the 1870-1920 period to examine the effects that changes in the cultural composition of the population of US counties had on output growth. We construct measures of fractionalization and polarization to distinguish between the different effects of cultural diversity. Our main finding is that increases in cultural fractionalization significantly increased output, while increases in cultural polarization significantly decreased output. We address the issue of identifying the causal effect of cultural diversity on output growth using the supply-push component of immigrant inflows as an instrumental variable. |
| Keywords: | cultural diversity, economic growth, historical development, immigration |
| JEL: | O1 Z1 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:wpaper:2011-02&r=mig |
| By: | Åslund, Olof (Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU)); Edin, Per-Anders (IFAU, UCLS); Fredriksson, Peter (Stockholm University, IZA, UCLS); Grönqvist, Hans (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject’s ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of high-educated in the assigned neighborhood raises compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. Particularly for disadvantaged groups, there are also long-run effects on educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects; Ethnic enclaves; Immigration; School performance |
| JEL: | I20 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2010–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2010_010&r=mig |
| By: | Martin Chalkley; Colin Tilley; Shaolin Wang |
| Abstract: | Many OECD countries are increasingly relying on migrants to address shortages of trained health professionals. One key concern is whether migrant health professionals provide equivalent health care. We compare the treatment provided by migrant and non-migrant health professionals using administrative data from the Scottish dental system. A difference-in-differences model is estimated to examine whether migrant dentists respond differently to case mix and individual circumstances as compared with their non-migrant counterparts, and assess the extent to which any differences diminish over time. After controlling for both observed and unobserved differences between individual dentists and the cohort of patients that they treat, we find that migrant dentists have marginally different practice styles, and the variation diminishes over time within two years of practice. |
| Keywords: | Migrant health professionals, Treatment difference, Assimilation, British NHS, Administrative data |
| JEL: | C23 I11 I18 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:249&r=mig |
| By: | Bonikowska, Aneta; Hou, Feng; Picot, Garnett |
| Abstract: | This paper compares changes in wages of university-educated new immigrant workers in Canada and in the U.S. over the period from 1980 to 2005, relative to those of their domestic-born counterparts and to those of high school graduates (university wage premium). Wages of university-educated new immigrant men declined relative to those of domestic-born university graduates over the entire study period in Canada, but rose between 1990 and 2000 in the U.S. The characteristics of entering immigrants underwent more change in Canada than in the U.S. over the 1980-to-2005 period; as a result, compositional changes in the immigrant population had a larger negative effect on the outcomes of highly educated immigrants in Canada than in the U.S. However, even after accounting for such compositional shifts, most of the discrepancy in relative earnings outcomes between immigrants to Canada and immigrants to the U.S. persisted. The university premium for new immigrants was fairly similar in both countries in 1980, but by 2000 was considerably higher in the U.S. than in Canada, especially for men. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic diversity and immigration, Education, training and learning, Population and demography, Educational attainment, Mobility and migration, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Outcomes of education |
| Date: | 2011–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2011329e&r=mig |
| By: | Eugenia Chernina (Toulouse School of Economics); Paul Castaneda Dower (New Economic School and CEFIR); Andrei Markevich (New Economic School and Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | While economists have little question about the potential for liquidity constraints to influence the migration decision, the relative importance of these constraints has resisted empirical verification. The unique nature of the Stolypin agrarian reform in Russia provides a natural experiment with exogenous variation in liquidity constraints. The reform gives peasants the right to withdraw from the commune and to sell one's share of land. Previously liquidity constrained households could then take this opportunity to migrate to less populated areas. Some communes were not affected by the reform, permitting difference-in-differences analysis. Using a panel of historical data from 1901-1914 on regional migration, we find a strong positive correlation between the reform and migration. We employ instrumental variables to address the possible endogeneity due to omitted factors that might drive both commune exit and migration. |
| JEL: | J61 N33 N53 O12 O13 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0147&r=mig |
| By: | Nikolaj A. Harmon (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | Over the last several decades global migration ows have increased rapidly, resulting in corresponding increases in the number and sizes of ethnic minorities in many places - Western Europe in particular. Given the existing theory and evidence of a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and public goods, a simple extrapolation thus suggests that the large public sectors in Western Europe will shrink. However, stark differences in the histories of ethnic confl ict, quality of institutions and timing between the European case and the settings studied in the existing literature raises concerns that such an extrapolation might be misguided. Using data on municipal elections and budgetary outcomes in Danish municipalities 1981-2001 this paper attempts to address these concerns. Employing a rich set of controls and an IV strategy based on historical housing data, the main results of the paper show that ethnic diversity has impacted outcomes of municipal elections in a way consistent with lower public good demand. Using a simple theoretical model to disentangle ethnic diversity effects from other budgetary effects, the paper further shows that the same holds true for budgetary outcomes, although an untestable but plausible auxiliary assumption is required on the budgetary process. The findings have important implications for immigration and refugee policy both in Europe and more broadly. |
| Keywords: | migration, Denmark, elections, ethnic relations |
| JEL: | J18 J15 O15 N94 N34 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:indrel:1277&r=mig |
| By: | Qu, Zhaopeng (Frank) (Beijing Normal University); Zhao, Zhong (Renmin University of China) |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the dynamic change of the migrant labor market in China from 2002 to 2007 using two comparable data sets. Our focus is on the rural-urban migration decision, the wage structure of migrants, the urban labor market segmentation between migrants and urban natives, and the changes of these aspects from 2002 to 2007. We find that prior migration experience is a key factor for the migration decision of rural household members, and its importance keeps increasing from 2002 to 2007. Our results show that there is a significant increase in wages among both migrants and urban natives over this 5-year period, but migrants have enjoyed faster wage growth, and most of the increase of wages among migrants can be attributed to the increase of returns to their characteristics. We also find evidence suggesting convergence of urban labor markets for migrants and for urban natives during this 5-year period. |
| Keywords: | rural-urban migration, labor market, wage structure, migration decision, segmentation, China |
| JEL: | J21 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5421&r=mig |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R. (George Washington University); Miller, Paul W. (Curtin University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | There are two complementary models of immigrants’ economic and social adjustment – the positive assimilation model of Chiswick (1978, 1979), and the negative assimilation model of Chiswick and Miller (2011). The negative assimilation model is applicable for immigrants from countries that are very similar in terms of the transferability of skills, culture, and labor market institutions to the host country, and has been tested previously primarily using migration among the English-speaking developed countries. This paper generalizes the negative/positive assimilation models through analyzing the post-arrival earnings profiles of immigrants in the US from non-English-speaking countries according to the linguistic distance of their mother tongue from English. Using data on adult male immigrants from the 2000 US Census, it is shown that all groups of immigrants from non-English-speaking countries are characterized by positive assimilation. Earnings in the immediate post-arrival period are lowest for the language groups furthest from English, and the increase in earnings with duration is steeper the further the immigrant's mother tongue is from English. The linguistic distance of the immigrants' mother tongue from the destination language appears, therefore, to play a crucial role in generating the inverse relationship between post-arrival earnings growth and the initial earnings disadvantage documented in most studies of immigrant earnings. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, assimilation, skill transferability, earnings, linguistic distance |
| JEL: | J61 J31 F22 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5420&r=mig |
| By: | Karin Mayr |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a model to analyze the effects of immigration by skill on the outcome of a majority vote among natives on both the size as well as the composition of public spending. Public spending can be of two types, spending on rival goods (transfers) and on non-rival goods (public goods). I find that relative preferences for the different types of public spending are crucial for the effects of immigration. In particular, immigrants of either skill can increase (decrease) the size of total public spending, if natives have a relative preference for spendingon public goods (spending on transfers). I provide some illustration of potential relative spending preferences in OECD countries using panel data for 1980 - 2010. |
| JEL: | F2 H4 H5 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vie:viennp:1101&r=mig |
| By: | de Carvalho Filho, Irineu; Monasterio, Leonardo M |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-term consequences of the government-sponsored programs of European immigration to Southern Brazil before the Great War. We find that the municipalities closer to the original sites of nineteenth century government sponsored settlements (colônias) have higher per capita income, less poverty and dependence on Bolsa Família cash transfers, better health and education outcomes; and for the areas close to German colonies, also less inequality of income and educational outcomes than otherwise. Since that is a reduced form relationship, we then attempt to identify the relative importance of more egalitarian landholdings and higher initial human capital in determining those outcomes. Our findings are suggestive that more egalitarian land distribution played a more important role than higher initial human capital in achieving the good outcomes associated with closeness to a colônia. |
| Keywords: | Brazil; Migration; Rio Grande do Sul; German migration; Italian migration; New World; Land distribution; Human capital; Economic history of Latin America |
| JEL: | F22 N3 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–01–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27954&r=mig |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Fan, C. Simon |
| Abstract: | An increase in the probability of work abroad, where the returns to schooling are higher than at home, induces more individuals in a developing country to acquire education, which leads to an increase in the supply of educated workers in the domestic labor market. Where there is a sticky wage-rate, the demand for labor at home will be constant. With a rising supply and constant demand, the rate of unemployment of educated workers in the domestic labor market will increase. Thus, the prospect of employment abroad causes involuntary âeducated unemploymentâ at home. A government that is concerned about âeducated unemploymentâ and might therefore be expected to encourage unemployed educated people to migrate will nevertheless, under certain conditions, elect to restrict the extent of the migration of educated individuals. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, E24, F22, J24, O15, |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:98572&r=mig |
| By: | Martin Kahanec; Klaus F. Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | Whether Europe will be able to stand up to its internal and external challenges crucially depends on its ability to manage its internal mobility and inflows of international migrants. Using a unique expert opinion survey, we document that Europe needs skilled migrants, and skill mismatch is to be expected. A review of current immigration policies shows that despite a number of positive recent developments Europe lacks a consistent strategy to address this challenge effectively, paralyzed by the notion of "fortress" Europe, which we argue should be abandoned. Since significant political tensions can be expected between native actors that favor and disfavor further immigration, improving European immigration policies and procedures is a formidable challenge. This task involves the need to improve Europe's image among potential migrants, especially the high-skilled ones. |
| Keywords: | High-skilled migration, mobility, immigration policy, Europe, European Union |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1096&r=mig |
| By: | Amelie Constant; Martin Kahanec; Klaus F. Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | The standard approach of analysing gaps in social and labor market outcomes of different ethnic groups relies on analysis of statistical data about the affected groups. In this paper we go beyond this approach by measuring the views of expert stakeholders involved in minority integration. This enables us to better understand the risk of minority exclusion; the inner nature of discrimination, negative attitudes and internal barriers; as well as the ethnic minorities' desires and perceptions about which approaches are better than others in dealing with integration challenges. Main findings are that ethnic minorities do want to change their situation, especially in terms of employment, education, housing and attitudes towards them. Insufficient knowledge of the official language, insufficient education, discriminatory attitudes and behavior towards ethnic minorities as well as institutional barriers, such as citizenship or legal restrictions, seem to constitute the key barriers to their social and labor market integration. |
| Keywords: | Attitudes, opinions, immigrants, ethnic minorities, labor market |
| JEL: | J15 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1095&r=mig |
| By: | Bonikowska, Aneta; Hou, Feng; Picot, Garnett |
| Abstract: | On compare dans le présent document les changements dans les salaires des nouveaux travailleurs immigrants titulaires d'un diplôme universitaire au Canada et aux États-Unis au cours de la période allant de 1980 à 2005 à ceux de leurs homologues nés au pays et à ceux des diplômés d'études secondaires (avantage salarial du diplôme universitaire). Les salaires des nouveaux immigrants de sexe masculin titulaires d'un diplôme universitaire ont diminué par rapport à ceux des titulaires d'un diplôme universitaire nés au pays au cours de l'ensemble de la période à l'étude au Canada, mais ont augmenté entre 1990 et 2000 aux États Unis. Les caractéristiques des immigrants arrivant au pays ont connu plus de changements au Canada qu'aux États Unis au cours de la période de 1980 à 2005. Par conséquent, les changements dans la composition de la population immigrante ont eu un effet négatif plus grand sur les résultats des immigrants très scolarisés au Canada qu'aux États Unis. Toutefois, même une fois pris en compte ces changements dans la composition, la plupart des écarts entre les gains relatifs des immigrants au Canada et des immigrants aux États Unis se sont maintenus. L'avantage salarial du diplôme universitaire dans le cas des nouveaux immigrants a été à peu près similaire dans les deux pays en 1980, mais était considérablement plus grand aux États Unis qu'au Canada en 2000, particulièrement pour les hommes. |
| Keywords: | Diversité ethnique et immigration, Éducation, formation et apprentissage, Population et démographie, Niveau de scolarité, Mobilité et migration, Immigrants et résidents non permanents au Canada, Résultats éducationnels |
| Date: | 2011–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3f:2011329f&r=mig |