nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2012‒09‒16
four papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
Australian National University

  1. Costs and Benefits of Immigration and Multicultural Interaction By Moritz Bonn
  2. Do Migrant Girls Always Perform Better? Differences between the Reading and Math Scores of 15-Year-Old Daughters and Sons of Migrants in PISA 2009 and Variations by Region of Origin and Country of Destination By Kornder Nils; Dronkers Jaap
  3. Does the Common Agricultural Policy Reduce Farm Labour Migration? Panel data analysis across EU regions By Olper,Alessandro,; Raimondi,Valentina; Cavicchioli,Daniele; Vigani,Mauro
  4. Migration, congestion externalities, and the evaluation of spatial investments By Taryn Dinkelman; Sam Schulhofer-Wohl

  1. By: Moritz Bonn (University of Siegen)
    Abstract: This paper studies how the existence of a minority culture influences the well-being of the native population and its attitude towards immigrants. In this context, I assume that multicultural interaction can be advantageous for immigrants and natives if intercultural obstacles and communication problems are abolished. It is found that certain shares of the immigrant as well as of the native population have incentives to acquire knowledge of the respective other culture since it enables them to interact with each other. I find that immigrants are more likely to acquire knowledge of the domestic culture than vice versa what I attribute to di?erences in the respective population size, assortative matching behavior and potentially asymmetric learning costs. The model further predicts that natives who have suffciently low costs of learning the foreign culture are willing to vote for free migration whereas those who have higher learning costs will be in favor of immigration restrictions.
    Keywords: Immigration, Cultural Interaction, Political Economy
    JEL: F22 J Z1
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201240&r=mig
  2. By: Kornder Nils; Dronkers Jaap (METEOR)
    Abstract: As a follow-up of earlier analyses of the educational performance of all pupils with a migrationbackground with Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) waves 2003 and 2006, weanalyze the differences between the educational performance of 15-year old daughters and sons ofmigrants from specific regions of origin countries living in different destination countries. Weuse the newest PISA 2009 wave. Instead of analyzing only Western countries as destinationcountries, we analyze the educational performance of 16,612 daughters and 16,804 sons of migrantsin destination countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania. We distinguish 62 origincountries and 12 origin areas in 30 destination countries. We test three hypotheses: 1) Thedaughters of migrants from poorer, more traditional regions perform much better in reading thancomparable sons of migrants from the same origin regions, while the daughters of migrants frommore affluent and liberal regions perform slightly better in reading than comparable sons ofmigrants from the same regions. 2) Individual socioeconomic background has a stronger effect onthe educational performance of daughters of migrants than on the performance of sons of migrants.3) The performance of female native pupils has a higher influence on the performance of migrantdaughters than the performance of male native pupils has on the performance of migrant sons. Thefirst hypothesis can only partly be accepted. Female migrant pupils have both higher reading andmath scores than comparable male migrant pupils, and these gender differences among migrant pupilsare larger than among comparable native pupils. The additional variation in educationalperformance by region of origin is, however, not clearly related to the poverty or traditionalismof regions. Neither the second nor the third hypothesis can be accepted, given our results.
    Keywords: microeconomics ;
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2012022&r=mig
  3. By: Olper,Alessandro,; Raimondi,Valentina; Cavicchioli,Daniele; Vigani,Mauro
    Abstract: This paper deals with the determinants of labour out-migration from agriculture across 149 EU regions over the 1990–2008 period. The central aim is to shed light on the role played by payments from the common agricultural policy (CAP) on this important adjustment process. Using static and dynamic panel data estimators, we show that standard neoclassical drivers, like relative income and the relative labour share, represent significant determinants of the intersectoral migration of agricultural labour. Overall, CAP payments contributed significantly to job creation in agriculture, although the magnitude of the economic effect was rather moderate. We also find that pillar I subsidies exerted an effect approximately two times greater than that of pillar II payments.
    Date: 2012–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eps:fmwppr:133&r=mig
  4. By: Taryn Dinkelman; Sam Schulhofer-Wohl
    Abstract: Evaluations of new infrastructure in developing countries typically focus on direct effects, such as the impact of an electrification program on household energy use. But if new infrastructure induces people to move into an area, other local publicly provided goods may become congested, offsetting the benefit of the infrastructure. We use a simple model to show how to measure the net benefit of a place-based program without data on land prices—an indicator that is commonly used to measure congestion in developed countries but that often cannot be used in poor countries because land markets are missing or land prices are badly measured. Our model shows that congestion externalities are especially large when land markets are missing. To illustrate, we estimate the welfare impact of a recent household electrification program in South Africa. Congestion externalities from migration reduced local welfare gains by half.
    Keywords: South Africa
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmwp:700&r=mig

This nep-mig issue is ©2012 by Yuji Tamura. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.