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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Biavaschi, Costanza (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies in- and out-migration from the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century and assesses how these flows affected state-level labor markets. It shows that out-migration positively impacted the wages of remaining workers, while in-migration had a negative impact. Hence, immigrant arrivals were substitutes of the existing workforce, while out-migration reduced the competitive pressure on labor markets. |
| Keywords: | migration flows, impact of migration |
| JEL: | F22 J01 J61 N32 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7049&r=mig |
| By: | Andri Chassamboulli; Theodore Palivos |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of the skill-biased immigration influx that took place during the years 2000-2009 in the United States, within a search and matching model that allows for skill heterogeneity, differential search cost between immigrants and natives, capital-skill complementarity and possibly endogenous skill acquisition. Within such a framework, we find that although the skill-biased immigration raised the overall net income to natives, it may have had distributional effects. Specifically, unskilled native workers gained in terms of both employment and wages. Skilled native workers, on the other hand, gained in terms of employment but may have lost in terms of wages. Nevertheless, in one extension of the model, where skilled workers and immigrants are imperfect substitutes, we find that even the skilled wage may have risen. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Search, Unemployment, Skill-heterogeneity |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucy:cypeua:17-2012&r=mig |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A. (Center for Global Development); Tiongson, Erwin R. (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Labor markets are increasingly global. Overseas work can enrich households but also split them geographically, with ambiguous net effects on decisions about work, investment, and education. These net effects, and their mechanisms, are poorly understood. We study a policy discontinuity in the Philippines that resulted in quasi-random assignment of temporary, partial-household migration to high-wage jobs in Korea. This allows unusually reliable measurement of the reduced-form effect of these overseas jobs on migrant households. A purpose-built survey allows nonexperimental tests of different theoretical mechanisms for the reduced-form effect. We also explore how reliably the reduced-form effect could be measured with standard observational estimators. We find large effects on spending, borrowing, and human capital investment, but no effects on saving or entrepreneurship. Remittances appear to overwhelm household splitting as a causal mechanism. |
| Keywords: | migration, households, remittances, policy discontinuity |
| JEL: | J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7028&r=mig |
| By: | Gil S. Epstein (Bar-Ilan University); Renana Lindner Pomerantz |
| Abstract: | During the last few decades cultural changes have been taking place in many countries due to migration. The degree to which the foreign culture influences the local culture, differs across countries. This paper shows how the willingness of locals and immigrants to intermarry influences the culture and the national identity of the host country. We use a search-theoretic approach to show that, even in situations where migrants and natives prefer to marry within their own community, the search process may lead to intermarriage. The exogamy can take on two forms: either migrants and natives each hold on to their own culture or the immigrants take on the natives' culture. In the first case we will see new cultures developing and the local culture will not survive over time. In the second case the local culture will survive. We show the conditions for assimilation versus no assimilation between the groups. |
| Keywords: | Assimilation, Migration, Marriage, Culture. |
| JEL: | F22 R23 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2012-11&r=mig |
| By: | Marcus Böhme |
| Abstract: | International migration not only enables individuals to earn higher wages but also exposes them to new environments. The norms and values experienced at the destination country could change the behavior of the migrant but also of family members left behind. In this paper we argue that a brain gain could take place due to a change in educational aspirations of caregivers in migrant households. Using unique survey data from Moldova, we find that international migration raises parental aspirations in households located at the lower end of the human capital distribution. The identification of these effects relies on GDP growth shocks in the destination countries and migration networks. We conclude that aspirations are a highly relevant determinant of intergenerational human capital transfer and that even temporary international migration can shift human capital formation to a higher steady state by inducing higher educational aspirations of caregivers |
| Keywords: | education, aspirations, migration, brain gain |
| JEL: | D03 O12 I21 J61 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1811&r=mig |
| By: | Elise S. Brezis (Bar-Ilan University); Ariel Soueri |
| Abstract: | Globalization has led to a vast flow of migration of workers but also of students. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the migration of individuals encompassing decisions already at the level of education. We develop a “unified brain drain” model that incorporates the decisions of an individual vis‐à‐vis both education and migration. In the empirical part, this paper addresses international flows of migration within the EU and presents strong evidence of concentration of students in countries with high-quality education. This phenomenon, as the usual brain drain, has two opposite effects on social mobility. |
| Keywords: | Brain drain; Globalization, Higher education; Human capital; Migration, Mobility, Bologna process. |
| JEL: | F22 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2012-15&r=mig |
| By: | Bandiera, Oriana; Rasul, Imran; Viarengo, Martina |
| Abstract: | We provide new estimates of migrant flows into and out of America during the Age of Mass Migration at the turn of the twentieth century. Our analysis is based on a novel data set of administrative records covering the universe of 24 million migrants who entered Ellis Island, New York between 1892 and 1924. We use these records to measure inflows into New York, and then scale-up these figures to estimate migrant inflows into America as a whole. Combining these flow estimates with census data on the stock of foreign-born in America in 1900, 1910 and 1920, we conduct a demographic accounting exercise to estimate out-migration rates in aggregate and for each nationality-age-gender cohort. This exercise overturns common wisdom on two fronts. First, we estimate flows into the US to be 20% and 170% higher than stated in official statistics for the 1900-10 and 1910-20 decades, respectively. Second, once mortality is accounted for, we estimate out-migration rates from the US to be around .6 for the 1900-10 decade and around .75 for the 1910-20. These figures are over twice as high as official estimates for each decade. That migration was effectively a two-way flow between the US and the sending countries has major implications for understanding the potential selection of immigrants that chose to permanently reside in the US, their impact on Americans in labor markets, and institutional change in America and sending countries |
| Keywords: | Ellis Island; migration accounting; migratory inflows and outflows |
| JEL: | F22 N31 N32 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9248&r=mig |
| By: | Gil S. Epstein (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | A model is set up where migrants must choose a level of social traits and consumption of ethnic goods. As the consumption level of ethnic goods increases, the migrants become ever more different to the local population and are less assimilated. Less assimilation affects the reaction of the local population to the migrants and their willingness to accept the newcomers. This social phenomenon and affects wages and unemployment. We show that the growth in the unemployment and social benefits of legal migrants increases the consumption of ethnic goods, thus creating a trap wherein the willingness of the local population to accept the migrants into the economy decreases. This process also increases the probability of the migrants' dependence on the welfare state. On the other hand, illegal migrants could play an important role in the assimilation of the legal migrants. |
| Keywords: | Welfare state, Social benefits, Ethnic goods, Social trait, Assimilation, Unemployment. |
| JEL: | F22 O15 D6 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2012-12&r=mig |
| By: | Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. (University of Melbourne); Hanel, Barbara (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); McVicar, Duncan (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | We compare alternative methods for estimating immigrant wage and employment assimilation using unique panel data over 2001–2009 for a large, nationally-representative sample of immigrants. Previous assimilation estimates have been mainly based on cross-sectional data and have therefore suffered from a range of potential biases. We find that a fixed-effects model generates estimated employment assimilation profiles that are flatter and significantly different to those produced by cross-sectional and synthetic cohort methods. However, there are no significant differences in the wage assimilation profiles across alternative methods. |
| Keywords: | immigration, immigrant assimilation, employment, wages, Australia |
| JEL: | J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7062&r=mig |
| By: | Giorgio Fagiolo; Marina Mastrorillo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies international migration from a complex-network perspective. We define the international-migration network (IMN) as the weighted-directed graph where nodes are world countries and links account for the stock of migrants originated in a given country and living in another country at a given point in time. We characterize the binary and weighted architecture of the network and its evolution over time in the period 1960-2000. We find that the IMN is organized around a modular structure characterized by a small-world pattern displaying disassortativity and high clustering, with power-law distributed weighted-network statistics. We also show that a parsimonious gravity model of migration can account for most of observed IMN topological structure. Overall, our results suggest that socio-economic, geographical and political factors are more important than local-network properties in shaping the structure of the IMN. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Complex Networks, International Migration Network, Community Detection, Gravity Models |
| Date: | 2012–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2012/23&r=mig |
| By: | Gil S. Epstein (Bar-Ilan University); Erez Siniver |
| Abstract: | Studies in the US have shown that black immigrants have remained at the bottom of the wage ladder and that other groups of immigrants have overtaken them over time. The goal of this research is to determine whether a specific group of immigrants can displace a group at the bottom of the ladder. We use Israeli data to compare two ethnic groups: Israeli Arabs and Ethiopian immigrants. Israeli Arabs were considered to be the least successful ethnic group in the Israeli labor market until they were displaced by the Ethiopian immigrants. The results of our analysis show that an ethnic group at the bottom of the wage ladder can be replaced by another. |
| Keywords: | wage differences, immigrants |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2012-08&r=mig |
| By: | Giuseppe Scellato; Chiara Franzoni; Paula Stephan |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the link between mobility and the presence of international research networks. Data come from the GlobSci survey of authors of articles published in 2009 in four fields of science working in sixteen countries. Summary evidence suggests that migration plays an important role in the formation of international networks. Approximately 40 percent of the foreign-born researchers report having kept research links with colleagues in their country of origin. Non-mobile researchers are less likely to collaborate with someone outside their country than are either the foreign born or returnees. When the non-mobile collaborate, their networks span fewer countries. Econometric results are consistent with the hypothesis that internationally mobile researchers contribute significantly to extending the international scope and quality of the research network in destination countries at no detriment to the quality of the research performed. Results also suggest that the “foreign premium” on collaboration propensity is driven in large part by mobile researchers who either trained or worked outside the destination country where they were surveyed in 2011. With but one exception, the mobility findings persist when we estimate models separately for the US, Europe, and other countries. |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 O30 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18613&r=mig |
| By: | Schüller, Simone (IZA) |
| Abstract: | The major event of the 9/11 terror attacks is likely to have induced an increase in anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiments, not only among US residents but also beyond US borders. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and exploiting exogenous variation in interview timing throughout 2001, I find that the terror attacks in the US caused an immediate shift of around 40 percent of one within standard deviation to more negative attitudes toward immigration and resulting in a considerable decrease in concerns over xenophobic hostility among the German population. Furthermore, in exploiting within-individual variation this quasi-experiment provides evidence on the role of education in moderating the negative terrorism shock. |
| Keywords: | immigration, attitudes, education, September 11, terrorism |
| JEL: | F22 I21 J61 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7052&r=mig |
| By: | Carmelo Pierpaolo Parello |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present a dynamic small open economy version of the standard neoclassical model of exogenous growth where we allow for international migration. We consider both the case of perfect world capital markets and the case of imperfect capital markets and show that local indeterminacy always arises independently of the capital market regime. Also, we show that the competitive equilibrium fails to reach the social optimum and that the only policy capable of establishing the …rst best is tax capital earnings. Our analysis thus supports the view that all the policy actions that aim at restricting migration ‡ows are always ine¤ective to achieve the …rst best. |
| Keywords: | Small Open Economy, Indeterminacy, International Migration, Capital Adjustment Costs, First Best |
| JEL: | C61 C62 F22 F43 O41 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp159&r=mig |
| By: | Nicole Stanga |
| Date: | 2012–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwneu:neurusp155&r=mig |