nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2013‒04‒20
sixteen papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
Australian National University

  1. Making it Work: The Mixed Embeddedness of Immigrant Entrepreneurs in New Zealand By Cain, Trudie; Spoonley, Paul
  2. COMMUNITY DETERMINANTS OF IMMIGRANT SELF-EMPLOYMENT: HUMAN CAPITAL SPILLOVERS AND ETHNIC ENCLAVES By Liliana Sousa
  3. No Brain Gain without Brain Drain? Dynamics of Return Migration and Human Capital Formation under Asymmetric Information By Ozan Hatipoglu; Serhan Sadikoglu
  4. The effects of unemployment benefits on migration in lagging regions By Jordi Jofre-Monseny
  5. The Costs of Worker Displacement in Urban Labor Markets of China By Y. Ge; H. Lehmann
  6. The Impact of Conflict on Education Attainment and Enrollment in Colombia: lessons from recent IDPs By Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere; Kate Wharton
  7. Maids or Mentors? The Effects of Live-In Foreign Domestic Workers on School Children's Educational Achievement in Hong Kong By Sam Hak Kan Tang; Linda Chor Wing Yung
  8. “What attracts knowledge workers? The role of space, social connections, institutions, jobs and amenities” By Ernest Miguélez; Rorina Moreno
  9. "What Drives the Urban Wage Premium? Evidence along the Wage Distribution" By Alessia Matano; Paolo Naticchioni
  10. Migration, Trade and Income By Ortega, Francesc; Peri, Giovanni
  11. International Migration in Ireland, 2012 By Philip J. O’Connell; Corona Joyce
  12. The Impact of Migration Policy on Migrants' Education Structure: Evidence from an Austrian Policy Reform By Petr Huber; Julia Bock-Schappelwein
  13. A mobilidade interestadual da população no Brasil no início do século XXI: mudança no padrão migratório? By Fausto Alves de Brito; José Irineu Rigotti; Jarvis Campos
  14. Migración y representaciones regionales: Discursos sobre la Región de Antofagasta By Luis Miguel Rodrigo; Miguel Atienza
  15. Efectos de la migración sobre el crescimiento poblacional a largo plazo de las províncias cubanas By Daylin Cecilia Rodriguez Javique; Gabriela Marise de Oliveira Bonifácio; Natália Sales Dias Alves; Cassio M. Turra; Simone Wajnman
  16. Le retour des migrants marocains dans leur pays d’origine, quand ? Dans quelles circonstances ? By Bouoiyour, Jamal

  1. By: Cain, Trudie (Massey University); Spoonley, Paul (Massey University)
    Abstract: In seeking economic immigrants, especially those who are skilled, entrepreneurial and with capital to invest, a settler country such as New Zealand has assumed that national and city labour markets/economies will gain by adding to the human capital pool as well as creating new 'economic' activities of various sorts. Economic participation, both as labour but also as typically small business owners, often reflects the nature of mixed embeddedness (Kloosterman and Rath 2003) and especially the relational embeddedness (Portes, cited in, Vertovec 2009) of particular immigrant groups. This is most apparent in relation to social and economic networks, the deployment of human capital, immigrant engagement strategies and transnational activities. Using the concept of mixed embeddedness, this paper examines the strategies and outcomes for migrant entrepreneurs from the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, India, South Africa and the United Kingdom, drawing upon a largely qualitative analysis of immigrant employers from these groups.
    Keywords: migration, relational embeddedness, structural embeddedness, mixed embeddedness, New Zealand, immigrant entrepreneurs
    JEL: J15 J24 J39
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7332&r=mig
  2. By: Liliana Sousa
    Abstract: I find evidence that human capital spillovers have positive effects on the proclivity of low human capital immigrants to self-employ. Human capital spillovers within an ethnic community can increase the self-employment propensity of its members by decreasing the costs associated with starting and running a business (especially, transaction costs and information costs). Immigrants who do not speak English and those with little formal education are more likely to be self-employed if they reside in an ethnic community boasting higher human capital. On the other hand, the educational attainment of co-ethnics does not appear to affect the self-employment choices of immigrants with a post-secondary education to become self-employed. Further analysis suggests that immigrants in communities with more human capital choose industries that are more capital-intensive. Overall, the results suggest that the communities in which immigrants reside influences their self-employment decisions. For low-skilled immigrants who face high costs to learning English and/or acquiring more education, these human capital spillovers may serve as an alternative resource of information and labor mobility.
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-21&r=mig
  3. By: Ozan Hatipoglu; Serhan Sadikoglu
    Date: 2013–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bou:wpaper:2013/09&r=mig
  4. By: Jordi Jofre-Monseny (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB)
    Abstract: In this paper we analyze the unintended effects on mobility of a national place-based policy (SIPTEA) that provides greater unemployment protection in two lagging regions of southern Spain (namely, Extremadura and Andalucía). Using a border identification strategy and (1981 and 1991) census data at the municipal level, we estimate the effects of SIPTEA on population growth, the probability of staying and in-migration in rural areas that are experiencing high unemployment and significant out-migration flows. The results indicate that the policy mitigated population losses by increasing both the probability of staying and in-migration, although the locational inefficiencies implied are not particularly large. We also explore the effects of greater unemployment protection on labor market outcomes. Here, the results indicate that the policy led to a 10- to 13-percentage point increase in unemployment.
    Keywords: Unemployment protection, migration, mobility, place-based policy, lagging regions
    JEL: H73 J6 R23
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2013/6/doc2013-10&r=mig
  5. By: Y. Ge; H. Lehmann
    Abstract: This paper analyzes the costs of job loss in China, using unique new data from the Rural-to-Urban Migration in China (RUMIC) data set for the year 2009. We investigate conventional labor market outcomes upon displacement like the length of unemployment spells, hours worked and monthly earnings. We also analyze whether displaced workers are more likely to be in informal employment relationships or selfemployed or less happy than their non-displaced counterparts. We also look at health and psychic costs as additional outcomes. Displaced migrant workers do not encounter losses in terms of longer unemployment spells or wage penalties, while urban displaced workers incur very large costs in terms of these two outcomes. These results point to segmented urban labor markets in China. All displaced workers have an increased likelihood of being informal, while only migrants among the displaced experience a lowered incidence of self-employment. Also, health costs and psychic costs can be linked to displacement although these costs are not prevalent in a uniform fashion. Stratification of the data by gender, level of development and ownership seems important as it shows substantial heterogeneity of the costs of job loss across these dimensions.
    JEL: J64 J65 P50
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp876&r=mig
  6. By: Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere (School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology); Kate Wharton (Georgia Institute of Technology)
    Abstract: Forty years of low-intensity internal armed conflict have made Colombia home to over 3 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the world’s largest population. The effect of violence on a child’s education is of particular concern because of the critical role that education plays in increasing human capital and productivity. This paper explores the education accumulation and enrollment gaps created by being directly affected by conflict. We proxy for this direct impact by focusing on IDPs. First, we show that measuring the impact of conflict on children using levels of conflict at the municipal level underestimates the education enrollment and accumulation gaps. We subsequently estimate the education accumulation and enrollment gaps for IDPs in comparison to non-migrants and other migrants using various econometric techniques. Our results suggest a significant education accumulation gap for children of IDPs compared to non-migrants that widens to approximately half a year at the secondary level. We find no evidence of enrollment gaps at the primary level when appropriate controls are included, but we do find a lower probability of enrollment at the secondary level. The disparity in effects when we focus on direct exposure to conflict versus a dummy that captures living in a municipality with high conflict suggests the need to be careful when using the latter to estimate the impact of conflict.
    Keywords: Education Attainment, School Enrollment, Colombia, Internal Displacement, Conflict
    JEL: I24 O12 O15 J10
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:141&r=mig
  7. By: Sam Hak Kan Tang (Business School, University of Western Australia); Linda Chor Wing Yung (Department of Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong)
    Abstract: This paper studies the effects of live-in foreign domestic workers (FDWs) on children’s educational achievement using samples from two population censuses and a survey dataset. The census data shows that the incidence of express schooling is significantly higher for children who are under the care of an FDW when their mothers are at work. In the survey data, children scored higher for English if they had a Filipino FDW. The age of FDWs had a positive and significant relationship with children’s average scores for Chinese, English and Mathematics. These findings suggest that FDWs provide an important childrearing service, which is often unrecognised and undervalued.
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:12-27&r=mig
  8. By: Ernest Miguélez (Economics and Statistics Division, World Intellectual Property Organization and Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Rorina Moreno (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona)
    Abstract: The aim of the present paper is to identify the determinants of the geographical mobility of skilled individuals, such as inventors, across European regions. Their mobility contributes to the geographical diffusion of knowledge and reshapes the geography of talent. We test whether geography, amenities, job opportunities and social proximity between inventors’ communities, and the so-called National System of Innovation, drive in- and out-flows of inventors between pairs of regions. We use a control function approach to address the endogenous nature of social proximity, and zero-inflated negative binomial models to accommodate our estimations to the count nature of the dependent variable and the high number of zeros it contains. Our results highlight the importance of physical proximity in driving the mobility patterns of inventors. However, job opportunities, social and institutional relations, and technological and cultural proximity also play key roles in mediating this phenomenon.
    Keywords: inventors’ mobility, gravity model, amenities, job opportunities, social and institutional proximities, zero-inflated negative binomial, European regions. JEL classification: C8, J61, O31, O33, R0
    Date: 2012–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201203&r=mig
  9. By: Alessia Matano (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Paolo Naticchioni (University of Cassino, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, CeLEG-Luiss)
    Abstract: This paper aims at disentangling the role played by different theoretical explanations in accounting for the urban wage premium along the wage distribution. We analyze the wage dynamics of migrants from low-to-high-density areas in Italy, using quantile regression and individual panel data to control for the sorting of workers. The results show that skilled workers enjoy a higher wage premium when they migrate (wage level effect), in line with the agglomeration externalities explanation, while unskilled workers benefit more from a wage premium accruing over time (wage growth effect). Further, investigating the determinants of the wage growth effect in greater depth, we find that for unskilled workers the wage growth is mainly due to human capital accumulation over time, consistently with the “learning” hypothesis, while for skilled workers it is the “coordination” hypothesis that matters..
    Keywords: Urban Wage Premium, Human Capital, Spatial Sorting, Wage Distribution, Quantile Fixed Effects. JEL classification: J31, J61, R23
    Date: 2012–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201202&r=mig
  10. By: Ortega, Francesc (Queens College, CUNY); Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis)
    Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between openness to trade, immigration, and income per person across countries. To address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental-variables strategy introduced by Frankel and Romer (1999). We build predictors of openness to immigration and to trade for each country by using information on bilateral geographical and cultural distance (while controlling for country size). Since geography may affect income through other channels, we also control for climate, disease environment, natural resources, and colonial origins. Most importantly, we also account for the roles of institutions and early development. Our instrumental-variables estimates provide evidence of a robust, positive effect of openness to immigration on long-run income per capita. In contrast, we are unable to establish an effect of trade openness on income. We also show that the effect of migration operates through an increase in total factor productivity, which appears to reflect increased diversity in productive skills and, to some extent, a higher rate of innovation.
    Keywords: international migration, trade, income per person, productivity, geography, institutions, diversity
    JEL: F22 E25 J61
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7325&r=mig
  11. By: Philip J. O’Connell (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin); Corona Joyce (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin)
    Abstract: This working paper is based on the Irish report to the OECD Continuous Reporting System on Migration (the SOPEMI Expert Group). As such, the focus of the report is largely shaped by the reporting requirements for the preparation of the annual OECD International Migration Outlook. The principal reference year is 2011, although information relating to early-2012 is included where available and relevant. The Executive Summary which provides an overview of the main findings of the report, Section 2 discusses the main developments in migration and integration policy in Ireland in 2011. Section 3 reviews the statistics on inward and outward migration movements. Section 4 examines trends in the population, informed by Census 2011. Migration and the labour market are discussed in Section 5. The final section presents a review of Irish research on discrimination against immigrants, which is intended to contribute to a special focus on discrimination in the forthcoming International Migration Outlook 2013.
    Keywords: international migration, ireland, workforce, labour market
    JEL: D31 D63 Z13
    Date: 2013–04–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201304&r=mig
  12. By: Petr Huber (Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), Arsenal, Objekt 20, 1030 Wien and Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno.); Julia Bock-Schappelwein (Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), Arsenal, Objekt 20, 1030 Wien)
    Abstract: We ask how a reform of migration law intended to increase the selectivity of migration (the so-called integration agreement regulation in 2003) impacted on the education structure of migrants to Austria. To identify the effects of this reform, we use the fact it affected only migrants from third countries but not from EEA-countries. We find no compelling evidence that this regulation improved the education structure of migrants to Austria. Our interpretation of this is that the implicit positive impact of the reforms on the education structure of migrants was countervailed by an increased restrictiveness of the migration regime in total.
    Keywords: Migration Policy, Self-Selection, European Economic Area
    JEL: F22 J61 I20 O15
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:men:wpaper:35_2013&r=mig
  13. By: Fausto Alves de Brito (Cedeplar-UFMG); José Irineu Rigotti (Cedeplar-UFMG); Jarvis Campos (Cedeplar-UFMG)
    Abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyze the spatial mobility of the population in Brazil in the second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of this century, with reference to the units of the federation and the regions. Firstly, we analyze the major trends in trade flows and net migration between the sixties of the last century and the first decade of the current. Second, the findings, analyzes the changes observed in the most recent period, from 1980, when the census questions allow the calculations of return migration and short-term. The important conclusion is that the new migratory pattern that advertises itself does not mean a complete transition, however, it coexist characteristics of old and new, and this is perhaps its most important structural mark because accompanies the actual characteristics of the uneven development of capitalism in Brazil.
    Keywords: Internal migration, spatial mobility of the population
    JEL: J6
    Date: 2012–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td465&r=mig
  14. By: Luis Miguel Rodrigo (IDEAR - Department of Economics, Universidad Católica del Norte - Chile); Miguel Atienza (IDEAR - Department of Economics, Universidad Católica del Norte - Chile)
    Abstract: Research on internal migration has been traditionally based on a banal conception of space, without taking into account how regional representations, the social construction of space, affect the decision of migrating to another region. This work uses the methodologies of discussion group and sociological analysis of discourse to identify the discourses of future professionals from other regions in Chile about the Region of Antofagasta, a mining area located in Northern Chile. Despite the growing prosperity of this region during the past two decades, the discourses that represent Antofagasta have a negative denotation with different features according to the socio-spatial distance to this region and gender. These representations could reduce the arrival of qualified migrants and women to Antofagasta and negatively affect the future development of the region.
    Keywords: Enclave, Migration, social representations, regional and local development.
    Date: 2012–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cat:dtecon:dt201217&r=mig
  15. By: Daylin Cecilia Rodriguez Javique (Centro de Estudios Demográficos da Universidad de Havana); Gabriela Marise de Oliveira Bonifácio (Cedeplar-UFMG); Natália Sales Dias Alves (Cedeplar-UFMG); Cassio M. Turra (Cedeplar-UFMG); Simone Wajnman (Cedeplar-UFMG)
    Abstract: Over the last decades, Cuba has shown very low fertility levels in addition to significant negative migration flows. Moreover, within the country, there is intensive population mobility, characterized by different migration patterns across Cuba´s provinces. In this article, we look at the effect of both internal and international migration flows on long term population growth in Cuba and in its provinces. For that, we estimate reproduction and population growth measures using conventional demographic methods and the methodology proposed by Preston and Wang (2007), which is based on variable-r methods. Given the current demographic patterns, our analysis reveals important negative consequences for the size of the Cuban population in the future when migration effects are accounted for.
    Keywords: Cuba, international migration, internal migration, variable-r methods, stable population models, population growth.
    JEL: J11
    Date: 2012–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td459&r=mig
  16. By: Bouoiyour, Jamal
    Abstract: The aim of this study was to identify the causes of the return of Moroccan migrants to their home country. We will use for it a very original database of migrants from Morocco. The data were collected via a survey from the main post offices of Ile-de-France (metropolitan area) and Province. Using a probit model, our results show that some migrants have a higher propensity to return back to their home country if they are single (or divorced), young men, have modest incomes (between 1500 and 2000 €) and level of educational attainment (less than the baccalaureate level), send money regularly to their family living in Morocco and having accumulated money in the host country from previous investment in the home country; or student.
    Keywords: Moroccan migration, return migration, remittances
    JEL: F22 F24
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:46114&r=mig

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