|
on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Purvi Sevak Lucie Schmidt |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Health and Retirement Study linked with restricted data from the Social Security Administration, this article compares retirement resources of immigrant and native-born workers. Results suggest that although immigrants have lower levels of Social Security benefits than workers born in the United States, when holding demographic characteristics constant, immigrants have higher levels of net worth. The estimated immigrant differentials vary a great deal by number of years in the United States, with the most recent immigrants being the least prepared for retirement. |
| Keywords: | Health Retirement Immigrants Disability |
| JEL: | I J |
| Date: | 2014–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:9171eb390fae4b858101d3712ab6e840&r=mig |
| By: | Amy Finkelstein; Matthew Gentzkow; Heidi Williams |
| Abstract: | We study the drivers of geographic variation in US health care utilization, using an empirical strategy that exploits migration of Medicare patients to separate the role of demand and supply factors. Our approach allows us to account for demand differences driven by both observable and unobservable patient characteristics. We find that 40-50 percent of geographic variation in utilization is attributable to patient demand, with the remainder due to place-specific supply factors. Demand variation does not appear to result from differences in past experiences, and is explained to a significant degree by differences in patient health. |
| JEL: | H51 I1 I11 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20789&r=mig |
| By: | Maystadt, Jean-François; Duranton, Gilles |
| Abstract: | Every year, thousands of people flee their country of origin to seek protection mainly in neighboring countries. Understanding better the consequences of temporary population shocks on hosting economies should help to guide policies to enhance resilience in emergency situations. This study exploits a 1991–2010 Tanzanian household panel to assess the effects of the temporary refugee inflows originating from Burundi (1993) and Rwanda (1994). We find that the refugee presence has had a persistent and positive impact on the welfare of the local population. We investigate the possible channels of transmission, underscoring the importance of a decrease in transport costs as a key driver of this persistent change in welfare. We interpret these findings as the ability of a temporary shock to induce a persistent shift in the equilibrium through subsequent investments rather than a switch to a new equilibrium in a multiple-equilibrium setting. |
| Keywords: | Refugees, Migration, roads, infrastructure, Economic development, transportation, Poverty, Climate, population shocks, resilience, multiple equilibrium, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1377&r=mig |
| By: | Hillel Rapoport; Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga |
| Abstract: | he current EU Asylum policy is widely seen as ineffective and unfair. We propose an EU-wide market for tradable quotas on both refugees and asylum-seekers coupled with a matching mechanism linking countries' and migrants' preferences. We show that the proposed system can go a long way towards addressing the shortcomings of the existing system. We illustrate this claim using the recent problems regarding relocation faced by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in Malta. |
| Keywords: | Immigration policy, EU policy, tradable quotas, refugee resettlement, asylum seekers, international public goods. |
| JEL: | F22 F5 H87 I3 K33 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2014/101&r=mig |
| By: | Sarma, Vengadeshvaran; Parinduri, Rasyad |
| Abstract: | We examine what happens to Sri Lankan men’s labour supply when their wives emigrate to work and leave the husbands and children at home—the effects of maternal migration on the husbands’ labour supply. Using sibling sex-composition of a household as an instrumental variable for the household’s number of children in three-stage least-square estimations, we find maternal migration reduces the husbands’ labour supply. The husbands are more likely to exit the labour market and become unemployed; the employed are less likely to moonlight and have lower wages; those that exit the labour market are more likely to become stay-at-home dads. |
| Keywords: | maternal migration, labour supply, South Asia, Sri Lanka |
| JEL: | F22 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:60752&r=mig |
| By: | Mark Hoekstra; Sandra Orozco-Aleman |
| Abstract: | A critical immigration policy question is whether state and federal policy can deter undocumented workers from entering the U.S. We examine whether Arizona SB 1070, arguably the most restrictive and controversial state immigration law ever passed, deterred entry into Arizona. We do so by exploiting a unique data set from a survey of undocumented workers passing through Mexican border towns on their way to the U.S. Results indicate the bill’s passage reduced the flow of undocumented immigrants into Arizona by 30 to 70 percent, suggesting that undocumented workers from Mexico are responsive to changes in state immigration policy. In contrast, we find no evidence that the law induced undocumented immigrants already in Arizona to return to Mexico. |
| JEL: | J6 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20801&r=mig |
| By: | Catia Batista; Janis Umblijs |
| Abstract: | How do risk preferences affect migrant remittance behaviour? Examination of this relationship has only begun to be explored. Using a tailored representative survey of 1500 immigrants in the Greater Dublin Area, Ireland, we find a positive and significant relationship between risk aversion and migrant remittances. Risk-averse individuals are more likely to send remittances home and are, on average, likely to remit a higher amount, after controlling for a broad range of individual and group characteristics. The evidence we obtain is consistent with a “purchase of self-insurance” motive to remit in that we also find support for more remittances being sent by risk-averse immigrants who face higher wage risks and to individuals with more financial resources. JEL codes: D81, F22, F24, J15, J61 |
| Keywords: | Migration, Risk Aversion, Remittances, Self-Insurance |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:novafr:wp1402&r=mig |
| By: | Maria Ravlik (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the determinants of migration between countries. Special emphasis is placed on which factors attract immigrants. This paper is the first to analyse this question in an integrated framework that takes into account the characteristics of both the origin and destination countries of migration. The findings confirm previous findings, however, in a broader and more compelling frame given the study’s unique dyadic approach to the analysis of migration patterns. Migrants are more attracted to countries with a common colonial history but, then, among these, prefer countries that offer the better living conditions and rule of law. |
| Keywords: | international migration, push and pull factors, origin and destination countries, country dyads |
| JEL: | F22 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:52/soc/2014&r=mig |
| By: | Ozden, Caglar (World Bank); Parsons, Christopher (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the bilateral and skill dimensions from recent data sets of international migration to test for the existence of Zipf's and Gibrat's Laws in the context of aggregate and high-skilled international immigration and emigration using graphical, parametric and non-parametric analysis. The top tails of the distributions of aggregate and high-skilled immigrants and emigrants adhere to a Pareto distribution with an exponent of unity i.e. Zipf's Law holds. We find some evidence in favour of Gibrat's Law holding for immigration stocks, i.e. that the growth in stocks is independent of their initial values and stronger evidence that immigration densities are diverging over time. Conversely, emigrant stocks are converging in the sense that countries with smaller emigrant stocks are growing faster than their larger sovereign counterparts. Lastly, high skilled immigration and emigration stocks expressed in levels or as densities all exhibit signs of convergence. We conclude by discussing some competing mechanisms that could be driving the observed patterns including: differing fertility rates, reductions in emigration restrictions, migrant sorting and selective immigration policies, immigrant networks and persisting wage differentials. |
| Keywords: | Zipf's Law, Gibrat's Law, international migration |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8747&r=mig |
| By: | Emily Beam; David McKenzie; Dean Yang |
| Abstract: | Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. We conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. Our most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on international labor migration. Even the highest overseas job-search rate we induced (22%) falls far short of the share initially expressing interest in migrating (34%). We conclude that unilateral migration facilitation will at most induce a trickle, not a flood, of additional emigration. |
| JEL: | C93 F22 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20759&r=mig |
| By: | de Brauw, Alan; Russell, Joseph R. D |
| Abstract: | The debate over the wage effects of immigration for native workers is an old one. One side of the debate claims that immigration has little if any negative impact on wages among natives, whereas others suggest that immigration has large, negative effects on native wages. On the latter side of the debate, many point to the work of Borjas (2003), who takes a national view of the US economy and estimates a wage elasticity of -0.4 with respect to immigration. In this paper, we replicate and update Borjas with the 2010 US census data, and use the method to study an even larger, concurrent labor supply shock, namely the entry of women into the labor force. We both find a much lower wage elasticity than Borjas to immigration (-0.2) and estimate a positive, statistically significant relationship between men’s wages and women’s entry into education-experience cells when wages are annualized. We take this evidence to suggest that the Borjas model is misspecified as it inadequately specifies substitution between immigrants and natives, and inadequately controls for structural change in the US economy. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Labor market, Gender, Women, Wages, Macroeconomics, Immigration, labor force, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1402&r=mig |
| By: | Joseph-Simon Gorlach (University College London); Christian Dustmann (University College London); Jerome Adda (European University Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the wage dynamics of migrants focussing on their human capital accumulation and how it is affected by potential return migration. We develop a life-cycle model describing labor market participation, wages, return decisions as well as two forms of human capital, work experience and cultural integration. The model is estimated using panel data and exploits elicited return intentions as well as realised ones. We show that return intentions are key to understand the decision to invest in various forms of human capital and to explain differential wage paths. We show that conventional estimation methods overstate returns to work experience, as they fail to take into account selective return migration but also selective investment in human capital. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed014:679&r=mig |
| By: | Hou, Feng; Picot, Garnett |
| Abstract: | During the 1980s and 1990s, immigration was associated with the rise in low-income rates and family-income inequality in Canada. Over the 2000s, there were significant changes in the labour market and in immigrant selection. This paper focuses on the direct effect of immigration on the change in low income and family-income inequality over the 1995-to-2010 period. The paper outlines recent trends in low-income rates and income inequality for both the Canadian-born and immigrants. The low-income rate in Canada fell during the 2000s. Was this driven in part by changes in economic outcomes among immigrants? Inequality increased considerably in the late 1990s. Did immigration contribute to this increase? |
| Keywords: | Ethnic diversity and immigration, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Income, pensions, spending and wealth, Labour, Labour market and income, Low income and inequality, Wages, salaries and other earnings |
| Date: | 2014–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2014364e&r=mig |
| By: | Lucia Ferrone (Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa); Gianna Claudia Giannelli (Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa) |
| Abstract: | In many Sub-Saharan African countries, a large number of people migrate internally or abroad because of demographic, economic and political factors. This pronounced mobility is likely to have consequences for children's education, still a matter of concern in the region. We study this issue for Uganda, investigating whether migration of household members affects children's primary education and in what direction. Using the Uganda National Panel Survey for 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2011, we estimate conditional fixed effects logit models of school attendance and primary school completion. We find that children's migration has a significant positive impact while adults' migration has a significant negative one on children's school attendance rates, while remittances have no influence. These findings suggest that children's migration is indeed beneficial, since it may contribute to match demand and supply of schooling. Adults' absence, instead, has controversial effects when children are left behind. In fact, lack of supervision and substitution of adults' tasks with child work might reduce the rate of school attendance. However, neither children's nor adults' migration seem to increase the rate of primary school completion, an evidence that points to the problem of the low quality of primary education in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Schooling, Panel Data Models with Fixed Effects, Uganda |
| JEL: | I25 J13 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2014_27.rdf&r=mig |
| By: | Mehdi Chowdhury |
| Abstract: | The modes of remittances of households in Bangladesh have been categorised as `No Remit- tances', `Internal Remittances' and `International Remittances'. This paper using a Multinomial Logit Model studies the associations between these modes and the households' basic character- istics. The study reveals that household level variables like rural-urban locations, age and sex of the households heads, religion, ratio of male, adult and young members etc. are potentially significant in households' orientation to remittances. Higher education however is not significant. The study surprisingly shows that the households with female heads are more likely to receive both internal and international remittances compared to the households headed by males. JEL No.: D01, F24, O53 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcre:14/05&r=mig |