nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2013‒10‒11
twelve papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
La Trobe University

  1. Migration to the US and Marital Mobility By Rebekka Christopoulou; Dean R. Lillard
  2. The changing geography of gender in India By Scott Fulford
  3. Migration and innovation: A survey By Rashidi, Sheida; Pyka, Andreas
  4. Turkish-German innovation networks in the European research landscape By Prostolupow, Irene; Pyka, Andreas; Heller-Schuh, Barbara
  5. The Determinants of International Mobility of Students By Michel Beine; Romain Noël; Lionel Ragot
  6. Revisiting Italian Emigration Before the Great War: A Test of the Standard Economic Model By P. G. Ardeni; A. Gentili
  7. Understanding International Migration: Evidence from a New Dataset of Bilateral Stocks (1960-2000) By Joan Llull
  8. Migration from Ukraine: Brawn or Brain? New Survey Evidence By Simon Commander; Olexandr Nikolaychuk; Dmytro Vikhrov
  9. The immigrant-native pay gap in Germany By Humpert, Stephan
  10. Immigration policy and birth weight: positive externalities in Italian law By Pieroni, Luca; Salmasi, Luca
  11. Migration and Increasing Wage Inequality: Can Imperfect Competition Explain the Link? By Korpi, Martin
  12. Tax Me If You Can! Optimal Nonlinear Income Tax Between Competing Governments By Etienne Lehmann; Laurent Simula; alain trannoy

  1. By: Rebekka Christopoulou; Dean R. Lillard
    Abstract: We combine survey data on British and German immigrants in the US with data on natives in Britain and Germany to estimate the causal effect of migration on educational mobility through cross-national marriage. To control for selective mating, we instrument educational attainment using government spending on education in the years each person was of school-age. To control for selective migration, we instrument the migration decision using inflows of immigrants to the US during puberty and early adulthood. We find that migration causes women to marry up and men to marry down, in line with cross-country differences in the availability of educated spouses and migrant-native differentials in the timing of marriage and financial maturity. However, the way migrants self-select into migration and marriage dampens down these effects.
    JEL: J1 J12 J15 Z1 Z13
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19495&r=mig
  2. By: Scott Fulford (Boston College)
    Abstract: This paper examines the changing distribution of where women and girls live in India at the smallest scale possible: India's nearly 600,000 villages. The village level variation in the proportion female is far larger than the variation across districts. Decomposing the variance, I show that village India is becoming more homogeneous in its preferences for boys even as that preference becomes more pronounced. A consequence is that 70% of girls grow up in villages where they are the distinct minority. Most Indian women move on marriage, yet marriage migration has almost no gender equalizing influence. Further, by linking all villages across censuses, I show that most changes in village infrastructure are not related to changes in child gender. Gaining primary schools and increases in female literacy decrease the proportion of girls. The results suggests that there are no easy policy solutions for addressing the increasing masculinization of Indian society.
    Keywords: Marriage migration; Sex ratios; Son preference; Geographic distribution of women; Asia; India
    JEL: O15 J12 J16
    Date: 2013–09–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:833&r=mig
  3. By: Rashidi, Sheida; Pyka, Andreas
    Abstract: In a world characterized by competition on a global scale, persistent structural change driven by innovation and aging societies in industrialized economies, also the competition for the best talents on the labour markets becomes global and more intensive. Therefore it is not surprising that old-fashioned brain drain explanations for migration are no longer convincing. In the knowledge-based economies of the 21st centuries the ideas of brain circulation and international (diaspora) innovation networks become prevailing and should guide the design of migration policies. This paper is a survey on the theoretical and empirical approaches which address the important relationship between migration and innovation. --
    Keywords: Innovation,Migration
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fziddp:772013&r=mig
  4. By: Prostolupow, Irene; Pyka, Andreas; Heller-Schuh, Barbara
    Abstract: Research networks are regarded as channels for knowledge creation and diffusion and are thus essential for the development and integration of economies. In this paper we have a look at the long Turkish-German-migration history which should offer opportunities for both countries to benefit from brain circulation, transnational entrepreneurs and research networks. The present paper examines the structure of research networks of the European Framework Programmes (FP) that are established by joint participation of organizations in research projects, in particular German research organizations with Turkish participants in FP5 to FP7 in the knowledge-intensive technology fields ICT, Biotechnology and Nanoscience. A better understanding of these networks allows for improving the design of research policies at national levels as well as at the EU level. The empirical examination of network properties reveals that the diverse networks show a range of similarities in the three technology fields in each FP such as the small-world properties. Moreover, our findings show that German actors play a specific role in most examined research networks with Turkish participation. --
    Keywords: Turkish-German-migration history,brain circulation,innovation networks,research networks,EU Framework Programmes,small-world characteristics,centrality measures
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fziddp:792013&r=mig
  5. By: Michel Beine; Romain Noël; Lionel Ragot
    Abstract: This paper analyzes the determinants of the choice of location of international students. Building on the documented trends in international migration of students, we develop a small theoretical model allowing to identify the various factors associated to the attraction of migrants as well as the costs of moving abroad. Using new data capturing the number of students from a large set of origin countries studying in a set of 13 OECD countries, we assess the importance of the various factors identified in the theory. We find support for a significant network effect in the migration of students, a result so far undocumented in the literature. We also find a significant role for cost factors such as housing prices and for attractiveness variables such as the reported quality of universities. In contrast, we do not find an important role for registration fees (reverse causality, signal of quality, covered by grants).
    Keywords: student mobility;network effect;migration costs;attractiveness policy
    JEL: F22 O15
    Date: 2013–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2013-30&r=mig
  6. By: P. G. Ardeni; A. Gentili
    Abstract: Among the many studies on migration before the Great War, Italy has received little attention, with a few notable exceptions and without providing a convincing explanation of its economic and demographic determinants. Standard neoclassical approaches explain emigration as driven by relative wages, relative employment rates and the stock of previous emigrants. We aim at improving on earlier contributions by covering all migration outflows from Italy to the most significant destination countries and by adopting the most consistent and up-to-date econometric approaches. As it turns out, the standard model is not fully confirmed and a more nuanced analysis is needed.
    JEL: F22 N32
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp907&r=mig
  7. By: Joan Llull
    Abstract: In this paper I present a new database of bilateral migrant stocks, and I provide new evidence on the determinants of international migration. The new Census-based data are obtained from the National Statistical Offices of 24 OECD countries, and they cover the total stock of immigrants in each destination country for 1960-2000, including 188 countries of origin. Empirically, I find strong evidence of heterogeneous effects of income gains on migration prospects depending on distance. For example, a 1,000 $ increase in U.S. income per capita increases the stock of Mexican immigrants in the country by a percentage three times larger than the percentage increase in the stock of Chinese.
    Keywords: international migration, determinants, data collection
    JEL: F22 J61 O15
    Date: 2013–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:715&r=mig
  8. By: Simon Commander (Altura Partners, EBRD, IE Business School); Olexandr Nikolaychuk (CERGE-EI, Prague); Dmytro Vikhrov (CERGE-EI, Prague)
    Abstract: This paper studies selection and labour market outcomes among Ukrainian migrants using unique data from a survey conducted in Ukraine between August and October 2011. We found that migrants are positively selected in terms of age and education yetthis is not associated, as might be expected, with their labour market outcomes. Notably, around half of the migrants are employed in occupations for which they are over-qualified. We suggest that this downshifting in occupation can be partly explained by the absence of the conventional link between education and skills in Ukraine. We compare pre- and post-migration labour market outcomes and find that the probability of downshifting decreases with the duration of stay in a foreign country and knowledge of English or the local language. Significantly, someone who downshifted prior to migration in their home country was more likely to downshift abroad. Further, we found that migrants to the EU are more likely to downshift when compared to other destinations.
    Keywords: migration, selection, occupation downshift, survey data
    JEL: F22 J24
    Date: 2013–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebd:wpaper:156&r=mig
  9. By: Humpert, Stephan
    Abstract: This note analyzes income differences between foreigners and natives in Germany. Using social survey data (ALLBUS) for 2012, I use Mincer style quantile regressions and Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions to estimate the size of the income differential. People not born in Germany, have an income lose for about 6,5 to 10 per cent. People with a foreign citizenship have even higher income losses. They face penalties between 8 to 14 percent. Decomposition shows a 9,2 percent difference for immigrants, while most of the gap is unexplained. Individuals without German citizenship have a 15,8 percent difference. Here more of the half remain unexplained.
    Keywords: immigration; income; pay gap; Germany; ALLBUS;
    JEL: F22 J24 J31 J61
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50413&r=mig
  10. By: Pieroni, Luca; Salmasi, Luca
    Abstract: A decade ago, the political party of the Italian center-right voted a law restricting immigration. It emphasized severity in granting permits to stay and limited illegal immigration. However, the law became effective in early 2005, when the Italian parliament approved the decree for its application. Only one article of this law, granting amnesty for illegal immigrant workers, was immediately effective, and gave irregular immigrants the opportunity to regularize their status. As a result, 650,000 immigrants were granted the status of foreign nationals in Italy. In this paper, we examine whether the increase in the prevalence of "regular immigrants" has led to an improvement in health outcomes of babies born to migrant women, measured in terms of birth weight. Two hitherto unexploited birth sample surveys published by Italian Institute of Statistics in 2002 and 2005 were used for this study. The surveys, concern interviews with 100,000 mothers who delivered a child between July 2000 and June 2001 in the first survey and in 2003 in the second survey. Our estimates show that regular immigration reduced the probability of low birth weight, indicating that economic benefits in place at birth may be strengthened by increased future productivity.
    Keywords: birth-weight, immigrants regularization, propensity score matching, difference-in-differences
    JEL: I10 I12 I18
    Date: 2013–10–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50368&r=mig
  11. By: Korpi, Martin (Ratio)
    Abstract: In this paper, we test two hypotheses as regarding potential effects of domestic and international migration on wage inequality. One related to the possibility of wage competition, and another alternative hypothesis related to fixed set-up costs and indivisibilities for different types of industries within the local labour market. Using detailed information on Swedish local labour markets, derived from Swedish full population data, for 1993 and 2003, a panel model of percent changes in inequality is estimated. Thereby controlling for local level fixed effects as well as other competing explanations, the results suggest that positive net migration may affect income dispersion regardless of possible negative wage competition.
    Keywords: Income inequality; local labour markets; business diversification; international migration
    JEL: D61 F22 J31 J40 R12
    Date: 2013–09–24
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0219&r=mig
  12. By: Etienne Lehmann (TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - CNRS : FR3435 - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (UPEMLV), CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique, ERMES - Equipe de recherche sur les marches, l'emploi et la simulation - CNRS : UMR7017 - Université Paris II - Panthéon-Assas); Laurent Simula (University of Upssala - University of Upssala); alain trannoy (EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS])
    Abstract: We investigate how potential tax-driven migrations modify the Mirrlees income tax schedule when two countries play Nash. The social objective is the maximin and preferences are quasilinear in income. Individuals differ both in skills and migration costs, which are continuously distributed. We derive the optimal marginal income tax rates at the equilibrium, extending the Diamond-Saez formula. The theory and numerical simulations on the US case show that the level and the slope of the semi-elasticity of migration on which we lack empirical evidence are crucial to derive the shape of optimal marginal income tax. Our simulations show that potential migrations result in a welfare drop between 0.4% and 5.3% for the worst-off and an average gain between 18.9% and 29.3% for the top 1%.
    Keywords: Optimal Income Tax; Income Tax competition; Migration; Labor Mobility; NashEquilibrium Tax Schedules
    Date: 2013–09–24
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00870053&r=mig

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