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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Longhi, Simonetta; Rokicka, Magdalena |
| Abstract: | The 2004 accession of Eastern European countries (EU8) to the European Union has generated concerns about the influx of low-skill immigrants to the Western member states (EU15). Only three countries, namely Ireland, Sweden, and the UK, did not impose restrictions to immigration from Eastern Europe. Did the elimination of barrier to immigration have an impact on the quality of immigrants arriving to the UK? Using EU15 immigrants as a control group, we find systematic differences between EU8 immigrants arrived before and after the enlargement. The elimination of barriers to immigration seems to have changed the quantity and quality of EU8 immigrants to the UK. |
| Date: | 2012–10–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2012-22&r=mig |
| By: | Giulia BETTIN (Universit… Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali); Riccardo LUCCHETTI (Universit… Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) in the 1997-2009 period for a large sample of migrants from 84 countries in order to develop an empirical model for the propensity by migrants to remit. Our model takes into full account the intertemporal aspects of the problem, which has been ignored by a large part of the applied literature, despite its theoretical and empirical importance. We find that most results already established in the empirical literature are confirmed; however, the intertemporal nature of the remittance behaviour emerges very clearly, giving rise to individual patterns which are difficult to synthesize by a simple description. Building on our framework, we find also support for theoretical models which predict different remittance time paths between return and permanent migrants. |
| Keywords: | German Socio Economic Panel, Migration, Remittances |
| JEL: | F22 F24 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:385&r=mig |
| By: | Aleksynska, Mariya (ILO International Labour Organization); Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Within the migration-trade nexus literature, this paper proposes a more carefully defined measure of migration business networks, and quantifies its impact on bilateral trade. Using cross-sectional data and controlling for the overall bilateral stock of migrants, the share of migrants employed in managerial/business-related occupations has a strong additional effect on trade, and especially on exports. Those immigrants should be the ones directly involved in the diffusion and transmission of information relevant for companies trading with other countries. Their presence is found to increase the volume of trade beyond the already known effect of immigrants or highly educated immigrants. When we control for the presence of highly educated immigrants, the share of immigrants in business network occupations shows a particularly large effect on trade in differentiated goods. Specifically, we find that highly educated individuals in business-related occupations are those contributing to export by the largest margin. Business network effects seem particularly important in stimulating exports to culturally different countries, such as those with different legal origin. |
| Keywords: | migration, international trade, business networks, differentiated goods |
| JEL: | F14 F16 F22 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6941&r=mig |
| By: | Ana Damas de Matos |
| Abstract: | I use a unique linked employer employee panel covering all wage earners in the private sector in Portugal to shed new light on the careers of immigrants. During the first ten years in the country immigrants close one third of the initial immigrant-native wage gap. I show that one third of this wage catch-up is accounted for by firm heterogeneity: Immigrants remain in the same occupations but get jobs with better paying _rms. Over time immigrants move to larger, more productive firms and with a higher share of native workers. These patterns are similar for all the recent immigrants irrespective of their origin and in particular of whether their mother tongue is the host country's language. Motivated by these new stylized facts, I suggest an economic assimilation mechanism which highlights imperfect information about immigrant productivity. I build an employer learning model with firm heterogeneity and complementarities between worker and firm type. The initial uncertainty over immigrants' productivity prevents them from getting access to the best jobs. Over time, productivity is revealed and immigrants obtain better firm matches. I derive predictions on the immigrant wage distributions over time, on their mobility patterns and on the productivity distribution of firms they are matched with. The predictions of the model are in line with the data and are not trivially derived from competing explanations. |
| Keywords: | Wage differentials, wage convergence, job mobility, immigration, linked employer-employee panel data |
| JEL: | J31 J61 J63 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1171&r=mig |
| By: | Michael Good (Department of Economics, Florida International University) |
| Abstract: | I estimate the effect that immigrants have on international trade between states of current residence and states of origin. The pro-trade effect of immigrants has been thoroughly examined since the mid-1990s, connecting both destination countries with origin countries and destination sub-national divisions with origin countries, respectively. However, a recent emphasis on the importance of geographic proximity to the immigration-trade link leads me to pose the question of how localized the trade-enhancing effect of immigrants actually may be. In turn, my analysis provides the ?rst results as to the immigrant-trade nexus at the state level for both places of destination and origin, relying on a unique data set allowing the mapping of Mexican-born immigrants’ US states of residence to Mexican states of origin. I ?nd that immigrants indeed promote trade between their US states of residence and Mexican states of origin, estimating a statistically signi?cant elasticity of exports to immigration equal to 0.08. This ?gure is not only qualitatively but also quantitatively important, corresponding to $2467 extra annual exports between respective US and Mexican states associated with each additional immigrant. |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fiu:wpaper:1203&r=mig |
| By: | Sylvie Démurger (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France); Li Shi (School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, 19, Xinjiekouwai Dajie, Beijing 100875, China) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the rural labor market impact of migration in China using crosssectional data on rural households for the year 2007. A switching probit model is used to estimate the impact of belonging to a migrant-sending household on the individual occupational choice categorized in four binary decisions : farm work, wage work, self-employment and housework. The paper then goes on to estimate how the impact of migration differs across different types of migrant households identified along two additional lines : remittances and migration history. Results show that individual occupational choice in rural China is responsive to migration, at both the individual and the family levels, but the impacts differ : individual migration experience favors subsequent local off-farm work, whereas at the family level, migration drives the left-behinds to farming rather than to off-farm activities. Our results also point to the interplay of various channels through which migration influences rural employment patterns. |
| Keywords: | labor migration, labor supply, remittances, temporary migration, left-behind, China |
| JEL: | O15 J22 R23 D13 O53 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1230&r=mig |
| By: | Delia Furtado; Nikolaos Theodoropoulos |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of ethnic networks in disability program take-up among working-age immigrants in the United States. We find that even when controlling for country of origin and area of residence fixed effects, immigrants residing amidst a large number of co-ethnics are more likely to receive disability payments when their ethnic groups have higher take-up rates. Although this pattern can be partially explained by cross-group differences in satisfying the work history or income and asset requirements of the disability programs, we also find that social norms and, to a lesser extent, information sharing play important roles. |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2012-23&r=mig |
| By: | Valentina Bosetti (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and CMCC); Cristina Cattaneo (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and CMCC); Elena Verdolini (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and CMCC) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the effect of skilled migration on two measures of innovation, patenting and citations of scientific publications, in a panel of 20 European countries. Skilled migrants positively contribute to the knowledge formation in host countries as they add to the pool of skills in destination markets. Moreover, they positively affect natives' productivity, as new ideas are likely to arise through the interaction of diverse cultures and diverse approaches in problem solving. The empirical findings we present support this prediction. Greater diversity in the skilled professions are associated with higher levels of knowledge creation, measured either by the number of patents applied for through the Patent Cooperation Treaty or by the number of citations to published articles. This finding is robust to the use of different proxies for both the explanatory variables and the diversity index in the labour force. Specifically, we first measure diversity with a novel indicator which uses information on the skill level of foreigners’ occupations. We then check our results by following the general literature, which measures skills by looking at the foreigners’ level of education. We show that cultural diversity consistently increases the innovation performance of European Countries. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Diversity, Innovation, Skilled Migration, Knowledge Production Function, Europe |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O31 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2012.69&r=mig |
| By: | Karin Mayr |
| Abstract: | Immigration policies are generally protectionist, yet positive immigration quotas often exist for workers in specic occupations where the native labor supply is scarce. This paper determines occupation-specic immigration quotas in a political economy framework with endogenous prices and compares them to the social optimum. It shows that positive quotas for specic occupations can be the political outcome, even when total welfare eects of immigration are negative. Two of the main ndings are that the (unique) voting outcome on immigration quotas is i) positive, if workers are immobile across occupations, and ii) negative (positive) for occupations where the native labor supply is suciently large (small), if workers are mobile across occupations. |
| JEL: | F22 D72 J31 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vie:viennp:1207&r=mig |
| By: | K.S. Kavi Kumar (Madras School of Economics,Chennai); BRINDA VISWANATHAN (Madras School of Economics,Chennai) |
| Abstract: | While a wide range of factors influence rural-rural and rural-urban migration in developing countries, there is significant interest in analyzing the role of agricultural distress and growing inter-regional differences in fuelling such movement. Given climate sensitivity of agriculture, there is also interest in exploring three-way linkage between agriculture, migration and weather anomalies. This strand of research acquires importance in the context of climate change adaptation. In the Indian context this analysis gets further complicated due to significant presence of short-term migration. Acknowledging the specific features of migration in India and with evidence from multiple data sources, this paper, (a) analyses the role of weather variability in inducing short-term migration using NSS (2007-08) data; and (b) estimates elasticity of long-term migration with respect to weather variability using Census data over the period 1981-2001. The results suggest that weather variability has an important role to play in both long-term and short-term migration in India. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change; Agricultural Impacts; Migration; Developing Countries |
| JEL: | O15 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:220&r=mig |
| By: | Ferdinand Geissler; Thomas Leopold; Sebastian Pink |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates gender differences in the spatial mobility of young adults when initially leaving their parental home. Using individual data from 11 waves (2000-2010) of the SOEP, we examine whether female home leavers in East Germany move across greater distances than males and whether these differences are explained by the gender gap in education. Our results reveal that female home leavers in East Germany are exceptionally mobile. This effect is attributable to their higher propensity of moving to West Germany. Education does not explain these gender differences. |
| JEL: | C23 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp493&r=mig |
| By: | Cristina Cattaneo (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the determinants of cosmopolitan cities. The hypothesis tested empirically is whether gradual improvements in distant communication boost the generation of ethnically heterogeneous cities. Consequently to easier communication, movers increasingly rely on an enlarged community for identity transmission, rather than on localized peer effects of segregated environment. The empirical estimation provides support to the prediction of the model. A better access to the airports as well as improvements in internet communications are found to increase city ethnic diversity. |
| Keywords: | Multicutural Cities, Ethnic Diversity, Productivity |
| JEL: | R11 F22 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2012.68&r=mig |
| By: | Luis Alberto Alonso González (Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.); Bruno Sovilla (Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas) |
| Abstract: | Remittances can have a contractive net impact on the recipient economy. In this case the effect of the sterilized intervention of the central bank in the foreign exchange market and/or the impact of stimulus policies on the autonomous demand prevent the contraction of GNP and foments the desired composition of the aggregate demand. In order to obtain this, the interrelations between these two instruments must be taken into account. |
| Abstract: | Las remesas pueden tener un impacto neto contractivo sobre la economía receptora. En este caso la intervención esterilizada por parte del banco central en el mercado de divisas y/o las políticas de estimulo de la demanda autónoma previenen la contracción del PIB y determinan la composición deseada de la demanda agregada. Para poderlo lograr, hay que tomar en cuenta la interrelación entre estos dos instrumentos. |
| Keywords: | Remesas, Intervención esterilizada, Supermultiplicador, Apreciación, Enfermedad Holandesa, Remittances, Dutch disease, Sterilized intervention, Supermultiplier. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doctra:12-02&r=mig |