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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Kleemans, Marieke |
| Abstract: | This paper develops and tests a migration choice model that incorporates two prominent migration strategies used by households facing risk and liquidity constraints. On the one hand, migration can be used as an ex-post risk-coping strategy after sudden negative income shocks. On the other hand, migration can be seen an as investment, but liquidity constraints may prevent households from paying up-front migration costs, in which case positive income shocks may increase migration. These diverging migratory responses to shocks are modeled within a dynamic migration choice framework that I test using a 20-year panel of internal migration decisions by 38,914 individuals in Indonesia. I document evidence that migration increases after contemporaneous negative income shocks as well as after an accumulation of preceding positive shocks. Consistent with the model, I find that migration after negative shocks is more often characterized by temporary moves to rural destinations and is more likely to be used by those with low levels of wealth, while investment migration is more likely to involve urban destinations, occur over longer distances, and be longer in duration. Structural estimation of the model reveals that migration costs are higher for those with lower levels of wealth and education, and suggests that the two migration strategies act as substitutes, meaning that those who migrate to cope with a negative shock are less likely to invest in migration. I use the structural estimates to simulate policy experiments of providing credit and subsidizing migration, and I explore the impact of increased weather shock intensity in order to better understand the possible impact of climate change on migration. |
| Keywords: | Internal Migration, Risk-Coping, Liquidity Constraints, Dynamic Choice, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development, Labor and Human Capital, Risk and Uncertainty, D14, D91, J61, O12, R23, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea15:200702&r=mig |
| By: | James C. Cox; Wafa Hakim Orman |
| Abstract: | Trust and trustworthiness are crucial to amelioration of social dilemmas. Distrust and malevolence aggravate social dilemmas. We use an experimental moonlighting game with a sample of the U.S. population, oversampling immigrants, to observe interactions between immigrants and native-born Americans in a social dilemma situation that can elicit both benevolent and malevolent actions. We survey participants in order to relate outcomes in the moonlighting game to demographic characteristics and traditional, survey-based measures of trust and trustworthiness and show that they are strongly correlated. Overall, we find that immigrants are as trusting as native-born U.S. citizens when they interact with native-born citizens but do not trust other immigrants. Immigrants appear to be less trustworthy overall but this finding disappears when we control for demographic variables. Women and older people are less likely to trust but no more or less trustworthy. Highly religious immigrants are less trusting and less trustworthy than both other immigrants and native-born Americans. |
| Keywords: | experiment, trust, trustworthiness, religiosity, immigrants, native-born |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2015-03&r=mig |
| By: | Tammaru, Tiit (University of Tartu); Strömgren, Magnus (Umeå University); van Ham, Maarten (Delft University of Technology); Danzer, Alexander M. (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | Contemporary cities are becoming more and more diverse in population as a result of immigration. Research also shows that within cities residential neighborhoods are becoming ethnically more diverse, but that residential segregation has remained persistently high. High levels of segregation are often seen as negative, preventing integration of immigrants in their host society and having a negative impact on people's lives. Segregation research often focuses on residential neighborhoods, but ignores the fact that a lot of interaction also takes place in other spheres of life, such as the workplace. This paper examines the role of residential segregation in workplace segregation among recently arrived immigrants. By using unique longitudinal register data from Sweden, we show that the role of residential segregation in workplace segregation differs in an important way for immigrant men and immigrant women. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, residential segregation, workplace segregation, longitudinal analysis, Sweden |
| JEL: | J15 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8932&r=mig |
| By: | Matsuo, Masaki |
| Abstract: | Migrant and labor issues are a primary concern in the Arab Gulf countries. With focus on the economic and political conditions that influence actors' decisions when framing labor policies, this study analyzes how preferences of such policies are formed and explains why the governments of the Arab Gulf countries attempt to implement less economical policies. The findings suggest that governments avoid concessions for enterprises required to implement more economical policies and chose uneconomical ones to maintain authoritarian regimes. |
| Keywords: | Gulf Countries, Labor market, Migrant labor, Migration, Authoritarianism, Labor policy, Arab Gulf countries |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 N35 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper514&r=mig |
| By: | Yamaguchi, Mami |
| Abstract: | Labour NGOs in China are relatively new organizations that emerged in the 1990s and have spread during the 2000s. Migrant workers in China are weak both socially and economically and have been lacking ways of voicing grievances and protesting. Grassroots labour NGOs for migrant workers seem to be an efficient channel for their voices. This paper examines how labour NGOs emerged and how they function in the context of current Chinese society. This paper adopts the case study method to describe three NGOs in Beijing and Shenzhen. The paper shows that these NGOs are using different methods to resolve migrant worker problems. At the same time, they are voicing the migrants' grievances and protesting in their own ways. |
| Keywords: | China, Migrant labor, Labor, Non-governmental organizations, Migrant worker, Labour NGOs |
| JEL: | J83 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper508&r=mig |
| By: | Piopiunik, Marc (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Ruhose, Jens (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | After the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 3 million people with German ancestors immigrated to Germany under a special law granting immediate citizenship. Exploiting the exogenous allocation of ethnic German immigrants by German authorities across regions upon arrival, we find that immigration significantly increases crime. The crime impact of immigration depends strongly on local labor market conditions, with strong impacts in regions with high unemployment. Similarly, we find substantially stronger effects in regions with high preexisting crime levels or large shares of foreigners. |
| Keywords: | immigration, crime, allocation policy |
| JEL: | F22 J15 K42 R10 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8962&r=mig |
| By: | Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates US-India labor migration and finds that it dominates permanent and temporary employment-based migration to the United States. The true economic value of temporary high-skilled Indian workers in the United States, based on a new visa data based methodology, is estimated to exceed $45 billion in recent years, surpassing the value of US cross-border imports of goods or services from India. The paper analyzes the impact of a potential US immigration reform on US-India bilateral labor migration relations and finds the 2013 Senate Bill S-744 to ease access for Indian individuals to the US labor market, while making it harder for some Indian high-tech firms to operate in the US markets. |
| Keywords: | Temporary Labor Migration, High-Skilled Workers, US-India Relations, Immigration Reform |
| JEL: | F16 F24 J61 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp15-1&r=mig |
| By: | Gardner, Andrew M. |
| Abstract: | This short essay, built on a foundation of more than a decade of fieldwork in the hydrocarbon-rich societies of the Arabian peninsula, distills a set of overarching threads woven through much of that time and work. Those threads include a discussion of the social heterogeneity of the Gulf State citizenries, the central role of development and urban development in these emergent economies, the multifaceted impact of migrants and migration upon these host societies, and the role of foreign 'imagineers' in the portrayal of Gulf societies, Gulf values, and Gulf social norms. |
| Keywords: | Gulf Countries, Migrant labor, Migration, Urban development, Anthropolgy, Arabian Gulf States, Demography, Development |
| JEL: | F22 J11 J61 N35 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper513&r=mig |
| By: | Foged, Mette (University of Copenhagen); Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Using longitudinal data on the universe of workers in Denmark during the period 1991-2008 we track the labor market outcomes of low skilled natives in response to an exogenous inflow of low skilled immigrants. We innovate on previous identification strategies by considering immigrants distributed across municipalities by a refugee dispersal policy in place between 1986 and 1998. We find that an increase in the supply of refugee-country immigrants pushed less educated native workers (especially the young and low-tenured ones) to pursue less manual-intensive occupations. As a result immigration had positive effects on native unskilled wages, employment and occupational mobility. |
| Keywords: | refugees, dispersal policy, manual skills, employment, wages |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8961&r=mig |
| By: | Huikang Ying |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the interactions between urban labour informality and selective migration, and explores the consequences of productivity changes at both sectoral and individual levels. It proposes a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous workers to characterize the sizable agriculture sector and urban informality in developing economies, and discusses implications for wages and inequality. The model links the size of the urban informal sector to the distributions of individual productivity endowments. The finding suggests that improving average individual skills is an efficient way to alleviate urban underemployment. Equilibrium responses also indicate that changes in labour markets have only modest effects on wages and inequality. |
| Keywords: | Rural-urban migration, informal sector, productivity changes, wage inequality |
| JEL: | J24 O15 O17 |
| Date: | 2015–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:15/653&r=mig |