nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2015‒06‒05
six papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
La Trobe University

  1. Women, Muslim immigrants, and economic integration in France By Claire L. Adida; David D. Laitin; Marie-Anne Valfort
  2. Economic Liberalisation and the Mobility of Minority Groups: Evidence from M?ori in New Zealand By Isabelle Sin; Steven Stillman
  3. Free Movement of Persons: The Mirage of Social Security Schemes By Roxana Sandu
  4. Migration and Cross-Border Financial Flows By Maurice Kugler; Oren Levintal; Hillel Rapoport
  5. Immigration, Trade and Productivity in Services: Evidence from U.K. Firms By Ottaviano, Gianmarco; Peri, Giovanni; Wright, Greg C.
  6. Perceived Group Discrimination among Polish Migrants to Western Europe: Comparing Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and Ireland By McGinnity, Frances; Gijsberts, Merove

  1. By: Claire L. Adida (Department of Political Science, University of California San Diego - University of San Diego); David D. Laitin (Department of Political Science, Stanford University - Stanford University); Marie-Anne Valfort (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS)
    Abstract: Muslim immigrants to Europe display distinctive attitudes toward women in a wide range of survey data. This study investigates whether this translates into distinctive behavior. Relying on a dictator game in France and an identification strategy that isolates the effect of religion from typical confounds such as race, we compare the donations of matched Christian and Muslim immigrants and rooted French to in-group and out-group men vs. women. Our results indicate that Muslim immigrant participants deviate from Christian immigrant and rooted French partici pants in their behavior toward women: while the latter favor women over men, Muslim immigrants favor men over women.
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00977064&r=mig
  2. By: Isabelle Sin (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Steven Stillman (University of Otago)
    Abstract: Between 1984 and 2003, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use Census data to examine how the internal mobility of M?ori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in the period after these reforms. It is often suggested that M?ori are less mobile than other ethnic groups because of attachment to particular geographical locations. If this were the case, M?ori may have been disadvantaged in the post-reform period because they were more likely to be living in adversely affected areas and less likely to move to pursue better employment opportunities. In contrast to the anecdotal evidence, we find that M?ori are more mobile on average than similar Europeans. However, M?ori who live in areas with strong networks of their iwi are slightly less mobile than Europeans. The difference between M?ori who live locally to their iwi and those who do not is even more pronounced when we consider responsiveness to local labour market shocks. Non-local M?ori are considerably more responsive to changes in economic opportunities than are Europeans, whereas local M?ori are almost entirely unresponsive.
    Keywords: Mobility, Migration, New Zealand, M?ori, Labour Market Areas
    JEL: J61 J15 R23
    Date: 2015–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:15_03&r=mig
  3. By: Roxana Sandu (European Economic Studies Department, College of Europe)
    Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of social security benefits that jobseekers, nationals of other Member State, residing in another Member States are in title to, as well as the economic implications of free movement of persons and labour market access. Consequently, it aims to disentangle between labour mobility welfare effects and “benefit tourism” looking in particular at the United Kingdom social security system and analysing the policy framework currently in place that governs the free movement of people across the European Union Member States.
    Keywords: Free Movement of Persons, Labour Mobility Welfare Effects, Social Security, Benefit Tourism
    JEL: H31 H55 H77 I31 J01 J15 J78
    Date: 2015–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:coe:wpbeer:34&r=mig
  4. By: Maurice Kugler (The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya - The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya); Oren Levintal (Bar-Ilan University - Bar-Ilan University); Hillel Rapoport (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics)
    Abstract: The gravity model has provided a tractable empirical framework to account for bilateral flows not only of manufactured goods, as in the case of merchandise trade, but also of financial flows. In particular, recent literature has emphasized the role of information costs in preventing larger diversification of financial investments. This paper investigates the role of migration in alleviating information imperfections between home and host countries. We show that the impact of migration on financial flows is strongest where information problems are more acute (that is, for more informational sensitive investments, between culturally more distant countries, and when the source country of migrants is a developing country) and for the type of migrants that are most able to enhance the flow of information on their home country, namely, skilled migrants. We interpret these differential effects as additional evidence pointing to the role of information in generating home-bias and as new evidence of the role of migration in reducing information frictions between countries.
    Date: 2015–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gmonwp:halshs-01134465&r=mig
  5. By: Ottaviano, Gianmarco; Peri, Giovanni; Wright, Greg C.
    Abstract: This paper explores the impact of immigrants on the imports, exports and productivity of service-producing firms in the U.K. Immigrants may substitute for imported intermediate inputs (offshore production) and they may impact the productivity of the firm as well as its export behavior. The first effect can be understood as the re-assignment of offshore productive tasks to immigrant workers. The second can be seen as a productivity or cost cutting effect due to immigration, and the third as the effect of immigrants on specific bilateral trade costs. We test the predictions of our model using differences in immigrant inflows across U.K. labor markets, instrumented with an enclave-based instrument that distinguishes between aggregate and bilateral immigration, as well as immigrant diversity. We find that immigrants increase overall productivity in service-producing firms, revealing a cost cutting impact on these firms. Immigrants also reduce the extent of country-specific offshoring, consistent with a reallocation of tasks and, finally, they increase country-specific exports, implying an important role in reducing communication and trade costs for services.
    Keywords: immigration; services; trade
    JEL: F10 F16 F22 F23
    Date: 2015–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10627&r=mig
  6. By: McGinnity, Frances; Gijsberts, Merove
    Abstract: Discrimination is a problem for both minority groups and the societies in which they live. Perceived group discrimination reflects the direct experiences of immigrants but is also an indicator of the wider societal context and its level of social cohesion. This paper draws on new longitudinal survey data to examine perceptions of group discrimination among new Polish immigrants to four Western European countries (Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany). Are there cross-national differences in perceived group discrimination, and how is discrimination related to exposure to, and experiences in, the host country? Perceived discrimination is found to be higher among Polish migrants in the Netherlands in Wave 1 (2011) than in the other three countries; perceptions of discrimination also increased more there between waves of the survey, as well as in the UK. Perceptions of group discrimination are related to some aspects of exposure to the host country (e.g. duration in the country), but are most strongly associated with negative experiences in the host country. Differences in country contexts - attitudinal climate and national discourses - seem to play a strong role in understanding perceived group discrimination among new Polish immigrants in Western Europe.
    Date: 2015–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp502&r=mig

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