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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Toman Omar Mahmoud; Hillel Rapoport; Andreas Steinmayr; Christoph Trebesch |
| Abstract: | Migration contributes to the circulation of goods, knowledge, and ideas. Using community and individual-level data from Moldova, we show that the Emigration episode that started in the late 1990s strongly affected political preferences and electoral outcomes in Moldova during the following decade and was eventually instrumental in bringing down the last ruling Communist government in Europe. Our results are suggestive of information transmission and cultural diffusion channels. Identification relies on the quasi-experimental context studied and on the differential effects arising from the fact that emigration was directed both to more democratic Western Europe and to less democratic Russia |
| Keywords: | Emigration, political institutions, elections, social networks, Information transmission, cultural diffusion |
| JEL: | F22 D72 O1 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1869&r=mig |
| By: | Almosova, Anna |
| Abstract: | Integration processes in Europe resulted in intensification of migration flows. Immigrants account now for a large share of population in many European countries. A point of view that immigrants take jobs form natives is quite widespread. The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia published a special analysis of the attitudes towards minorities in EU countries Eurobarometer 2000. They found that one in two EU citizens worry about competing with immigrants for the same vacancies and afraid of losing their jobs because of presence of foreign workers. Different measures and institutions which protect native workers have nevertheless an ambiguous effect. On the one hand labor protective institutions such as minimal wage, replacement rate or firing restrictions will protect existing workers and reduce a firing rate. On the other hand, firms will take into consideration these additional costs of firing and will be less likely to employ new workers. At the same time, it is argued that immigrants are probably less likely to be covered by these institutions. These facts imply that protective institutions cover mostly natives and therefore make immigration labor force comparatively less costly. Labor market protection may therefore amplify a negative effect of immigrants on native employment if it exists.This paper attempts to evaluate the effect of immigration in flow on employment level of natives and reveal whether this effect changes in different institutional environments using EU-countries data. In addition to static specification it uses a dynamic specification to draw conclusions about long-term and short-term effects separately. The results show no long-run effect of immigration inflow. Short-term effect of is found to be positive. Protective labor market institutions fulfill their function of protecting existing workers.The results are also different for men and women. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Labor Market Institutions, Displacement Effect |
| JEL: | J30 J61 J65 |
| Date: | 2013–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49785&r=mig |
| By: | Ernest Miguélez (Economics and Statistics Division, WIPO and AQR-IREA); Rosina Moreno (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The goal of this paper is twofold: first, we aim to assess the role played by inventors’ cross-regional mobility and collaborations in fostering knowledge diffusion across regions and subsequent innovation. Second, we intend to evaluate the feasibility of using mobility and co-patenting information to build cross-regional interaction matrices to be used within the spatial econometrics toolbox. To do so, we depart from a knowledge production function where regional innovation intensity is a function not only of the own regional innovation inputs but also external accessible knowledge stocks gained through interregional interactions. Differently from much of the previous literature, cross-section gravity models of mobility and co-patents are estimated to use the fitted values to build our ‘spatial’ weights matrices, which characterize the intensity of knowledge interactions across a panel of 269 regions covering most European countries over 6 years. |
| Keywords: | inventors’ spatial mobility, co-patenting, gravity models, weights matrix, knowledge production function. JEL classification: C8, J61, O31, O33, R0. |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201306&r=mig |
| By: | Anette Haas; Michael Lucht (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB)) |
| Abstract: | To examine the impact of migrants on the average firm productivity, wages and welfare we construct a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition a la Melitz (2003) considering heterogeneous firms with different productivity levels and imperfect substitutability between migrants and natives. This gives rise to wage differences between natives and migrants. As a consequence firms with a higher share of migrants realize wage cost advantages. The heterogeneous distribution of migrants in our model might foster regional disparities. In the long run equilibrium it depends on the migrant share, which kind of firms survive in the market. Above a certain migrant share only those firms stay in the market which are highly productive or are able to compensate a lower productivity level by wage cost advantages. By modeling this process, we show that a higher migrant share may explain a higher average productivity in a region. Though the relative wages of natives to migrants increase in the migrant share, in contrast the welfare effects for natives are ambiguous: it might be the case that in a region with a higher migrant share the welfare of a native can be lower compared to a worker in a region of the same size with lower migrant share. |
| Keywords: | immigration, firm heterogeneity, skills, tasks, regional labor markets |
| JEL: | R23 J15 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2013019&r=mig |
| By: | Gabin Langevin (CREM UMR CNRS 6211, University of Rennes 1, France); David Masclet (CREM UMR CNRS 6211, University of Rennes 1 and CIRANO, France); Fabien Moizeau (CREM UMR CNRS 6211, University of Rennes 1 and IUF, France); Emmanuel Peterle (CREM UMR CNRS 6211, University of Rennes 1, France) |
| Abstract: | We use data from the Trajectoires et Origines survey to analyze the labor-market outcomes of both second-generation immigrants and their French native counterparts. Second-generation immigrants have on average a lower probability of employment and lower wages than French natives. We find however considerable differences between second-generation immigrants depending on their origin: while those originating from Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Turkey are less likely to be employed and receive lower wages than French natives, second-generation immigrants with Asian or Southern- and Eastern-European origins do not differ significantly from their French native counterparts. The employment gap between French natives and second-generation immigrants is mainly explained by differences in their education; education is also an important determinant of the ethnic wage gap. Finally we show that these differences in educational attainment are mainly explained by family background. Although the role of discrimination cannot be denied, our findings do point out the importance of family background in explaining lifelong ethnic inequalities. |
| Keywords: | labor-market discrimination, second-generation immigrants, educational attainment, family background, decomposition methods |
| JEL: | I2 J15 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cremwp:201327&r=mig |
| By: | Vincenzo Atella; Partha Deb |
| Abstract: | This article examines the long term physical and mental health effects of internal migration focusing on a relatively unique migration experience from Southern and Northeastern regions of Italy to Northwestern regions and to the region around Rome concentrated over a relatively short period from 1950-1970. OLS regression estimates show significant evidence of a migration effect among early-cohort females on physical health. We find no evidence of migration-health effects for the later cohort, nor for males in the early cohort. We use finite mixture models to further explore the possibility of heterogeneous effects and find that there is a significant and substantial improvement in physical and mental health for a fraction of migrant females in the early cohort but not for others. Analysis of the group for which effects are significant suggest that health effects are concentrated among rural females in the early cohort. |
| JEL: | C21 I15 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19422&r=mig |
| By: | Lasha Labadze; Mirian Tukhashvili |
| Abstract: | This study provides an analysis of the costs and benefits of emigration for Georgia, with an emphasis on emigration to the EU. In the concluding section we dwell on the consequences of a possible liberalization of EU migration policies with regard to Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, and how such a policy change would affect the flow and composition of migration from Georgia to the EU. The study estimates the costs and benefits of migration through the prism of recent economics developments in Georgia and in particular the sweeping liberalization reforms of recent years. While Georgia remains a poor country, its geopolitical position as a Western outpost in the Caucasus and Central Asian region, its role as a key trade and transportation hub, the superior quality of its bureaucracy, lack of corruption, etc., provide a very different context for migration processes, turning migration into a circular phenomenon, a major factor in modernizing the Georgian economy, society, and politics. The EU should give due consideration to this phenomenon as it (re)considers its policy on migration with regard to Georgia and, potentially, other EaP countries. |
| Keywords: | Labour Economics, Labour Markets, Labour Mobility, Georgia |
| JEL: | D78 F22 F24 I25 J01 J15 J40 J61 J83 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sec:cnstan:0463&r=mig |
| By: | Giuntella, Osea (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Despite their lower socioeconomic status, Hispanic immigrants in the United States initially have better health outcomes than natives. Paradoxically while second-generation immigrants assimilate socio-economically, their health deteriorates. I show that a model of selection and intergenerational transmission of health reverses the apparent paradox, predicting a worse deterioration than the one observed in the data. While higher incidence of risk factors and acculturation are associated with poorer health, the “reverse paradox” is explained by the relative persistence in healthy behaviors among Hispanics. These effects hold true even in a subset of siblings, and holding constant grandmother-fixed effects. |
| Keywords: | birth outcomes, birthweight, intermarriage, risky behaviors, siblings, Latino paradox |
| JEL: | I10 J15 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7588&r=mig |
| By: | Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja) (University of New South Wales); Shonchoy, Abu (Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO)) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the characteristics of the workers in the informal economy and whether migrants treat this sector as a temporary location before moving on to the organised or formal sector to improve their life time income and life style. We limit our study to the Indian urban (non-Agricultural) sector and study the characteristics of the household heads that belong to the Informal Sector (Self Employed and Informal Wage Workers) and the Formal Sector. We find that household heads that are less educated, come from the poorer households, lower social groups (castes and religions) are more likely to be in the informal sector. We distinguish between migrants who come from rural areas and urban areas to their present urban location. We find that the longer duration of a rural migrant in the urban area, the lower the probability that the household head would be in the informal wage labour sector. |
| Keywords: | informal labour markets, migrant, caste, religion |
| JEL: | O17 J15 J61 J42 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7587&r=mig |
| By: | Zhong Zhao; Zhaopeng Qu |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the levels and changes in wage inequality among Chinese rural-urban migrants from 2002 to 2007. We use the Chinese Household Income Project dataset and the Rural to Urban Migration in China dataset to construct a unique dataset that allows us to document changing wage inequality among migrants and among urban natives between 2002 and 2007. We find that wage inequality among migrants decreased significantly between 2002 and 2007, whereas it increased among urban natives during the same period. Our results show that the high-wage migrants experienced slower wage growth than middle- and low-wage migrants, a primary cause of declining inequality among migrants. We used distributional decomposition methods, and find that the overall between-group effect (coefficient effect) dominates in the whole wage distribution of the migrants, which means that the change in returns to the characteristics (education and experience) play a key role, but on the upper tails of the wage distribution, the within group effect (residual price effect) dominates which implies that the unobservable factors or institutional barriers do not favor the migrants at the top tail of the wage distribution. |
| Keywords: | rural to urban migrants, wage inequality, quantity decomposition, China |
| JEL: | J30 J45 J61 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2013-04&r=mig |
| By: | Assaf Razin |
| Abstract: | This paper provides overview of recent work on migration and welfare state tax policies: 1. I survey the literature on the tax burden of migration. 2. I empirically identify the differential effect of the generosity of the welfare state on the skill composition of immigrants across the two groups (the "free-migration" group and the "policy-restricted migration" group) in an unbiased way. 3. I outline the implications of the tax burden of migration to tax competition within a union, facing migration from the rest of the world.Each host country in a competitive regime balances on the margin these gains and losses from migration. In doing so, each country takes the well-being of the migrants as given. Therefore, It ignores the fact that a tax-migration policy that admits an extra migrant raises the well-being that must be accorded to migrants by all the other host countries, in order to elicit the migrant to come in; and more capital income leaks, through capital taxation, to immigrants. |
| JEL: | F2 F22 H2 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19346&r=mig |
| By: | Lilia Karachurina (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy) |
| Abstract: | The State Migration Policy Concept of the Russian Federation through 2025 was adopted in Russia in 2012 after an extended discussion. The Concept is the second one in the Russian modern history. The first one – The Migration Process Regulation Concept of the Russian Federation – was issued in 2003 but failed to be implemented both due to the fact that “the rigor of the laws is commonly mitigated by non-compliance therewith in Russia” and some of the provisions of the above document were rendered a priori impossible and its analytical quality was found to be hit-or-miss. |
| Keywords: | Russian economy, migration, labor migration, domestic migration |
| JEL: | J11 J61 J62 F22 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gai:ppaper:160&r=mig |