nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2012‒07‒08
six papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
Australian National University

  1. Poverty Reduction in a Refugee-Hosting Economy. A Natural Experiment By Jean-Francois, Maystadt
  2. Does International Migration Increase Child Labor? By Anna De Paoli; Mariapia Mendola
  3. Employer sanctions, and the welfare of native workers By Stark, Oded; Jakubek, Marcin
  4. Immigrants and Earnings Inequality: Evidence from Hong Kong By Ou, Dongshu; Kondo, Ayako
  5. Immigration and Structural Change: Evidence from Post-war Germany By Sebastian Braun, Michael Kvasnicka
  6. Immigration and Economic Growth: Do Origin and Destination Matter? By Kang, Youngho; Kim, Byung-Yeon

  1. By: Jean-Francois, Maystadt
    Abstract: The role of migration in reducing poverty in developing countries has been investigated mainly from the perspective of migrants and their relatives. This paper exploits the time and spatial variations in the way households in the region of Kagera (Tanzania) traced between 1991 and 2004 have been affected by massive refugee inflows to assess how migration may affect poverty in the hosting communities. Large population inflows from Burundi and Rwanda have improved the welfare of the hosting population, particularly for the poor. Despite the process of structural transformation observed in the refugee-hosting economy, such pro-poor development is mainly explained by improved agricultural labor productivity and income diversification among the poor.
    Keywords: poverty, refugees, migration, structural transformation, Tanzania, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Labor and Human Capital, J21, J61, O15, O1,
    Date: 2012–07–26
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:126259&r=mig
  2. By: Anna De Paoli; Mariapia Mendola
    Abstract: Global international migration may influence child labor through a labor mar- ket effect. We empirically investigate this issue by using an original cross-country survey dataset, which combines information on international emigration flows with detailed individual-level data on child labor at age 5-15 in a wide range of developing countries. By using variation in the emigration supply shocks across labor market units defined on the basis of both geography and skill, we estimate a set of child labor equations where the variable of interest is the interactive e¤ect between parental skill and country-level emigration shocks. We measure the latter through di¤erent indicators including a direct measure of the relative skill compostion of emigrants relative to the resident population in the country of origin. Overall, after controlling for a large set of individual-level characteristics, remittances, and country fixed effects, our findings are consistent with predic- tions and show that international out-migration may significantly reduce child labor in disadvantaged households through changes in the local labor market.
    Keywords: International Migration, Child Labor, Factor Mobility, Crosscountry Survey Data
    JEL: F22 F1 J61
    Date: 2012–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:224&r=mig
  3. By: Stark, Oded; Jakubek, Marcin
    Abstract: We investigate the impact of the imposition of sanctions for employing illegal migrants on the welfare of native workers. Our analysis is based on the premise that in response to such sanctions, managers in a firm may be reassigned from supervision of production to verification of the legality of the firm's workforce. When there is full employment in the host country, a profit-maximizing firm will assign managers to verification if the sanctions are steep enough. This reassignment impedes production efficiency and, consequently, leads to a reduction in the wages of both illegal migrants and native workers, inevitably hurting the latter, who are the intended beneficiaries of the sanctions. --
    Keywords: Employer sanctions,Illegal migrant workers,Natives' welfare,The formation of public policy
    JEL: D21 I38 J21 J61 K31 L51
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuewef:38&r=mig
  4. By: Ou, Dongshu; Kondo, Ayako
    Abstract: Using data from 1991 to 2006 in Hong Kong, this paper documents how the distribution of workers’ earnings and the inequality of immigrants’ and natives’ earnings changed over time. We decompose earnings inequality to explore how the changes in immigrants’ share of the labor force have affected earnings inequality. We find that the increase in overall inequality can be explained by the increase in the within-group variance of natives. A nonnegligible part of the increase in inequality for women is due to the expansion of between-group variance caused by the large inflow of low-income immigrants from developing countries.
    Keywords: Earnings inequality; immigrants; Hong Kong
    JEL: D31 O15 J61
    Date: 2012–06–26
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39673&r=mig
  5. By: Sebastian Braun, Michael Kvasnicka
    Abstract: Does immigration accelerate sectoral change towards high-productivity sectors? This paper uses the mass displacement of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe to West Germany after World War II as a natural experiment to study this question. A simple two-sector model of the economy, in which moving costs prevent the marginal product of labor to be equalized across sectors, predicts that immigration boosts output per worker by expanding the high-productivity sector, but decreases output per worker within a sector. Using German district-level data from before and after the war, we find strong empirical support for these predictions
    Keywords: Immigration, sectoral change, output growth, post-war Germany
    JEL: J61 J21 C36 N34
    Date: 2012–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1778&r=mig
  6. By: Kang, Youngho; Kim, Byung-Yeon
    Abstract: This paper assesses the heterogeneous effects of immigration on economic growth depending on both the origin and the destination countries. Following the development of a simple growth model augmented by the embodied human capital of immigrants, we estimate the growth equation using a gravity-style instrument variable approach and the dynamic system-GMM estimator. We find that immigration from developed economies positively affects the economic growth of the host countries. Furthermore, the growth-enhancing effect of immigration is significantly larger when immigration flows from developed to developing economies than when it does to those that include both developed and developing economies. We interpret these results as evidence of immigrants from developed countries bringing with them – upon entry – their advanced knowledge on technology and institutions into the developing countries that host them.
    Keywords: International migration;Economic Growth;
    JEL: F22 C23 J61 O40
    Date: 2012–06–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39695&r=mig

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