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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Blum, Matthias; Rei, Claudia |
| Abstract: | The large-scale persecution of Jews during World War II generated massive refugee movements. Using data from 20,441 predominantly Jewish passengers from 19 countries traveling from Lisbon to New York between 1940 and 1942, we analyze the last wave of refugees escaping the Holocaust and verify the validity of height as a proxy for human and health capital. We further show this episode of European migration displays wellknown features of migrant self-selection: early migrants were taller than late migrants; a large migrant stock reduces migrant selectivity; and economic barriers to migration apply. Our Öndings show that Europe experienced substantial losses in human and health capital while the US beneÖtted from the immigration of European refugees. |
| JEL: | N34 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145483&r=mig |
| By: | Poutvaara, Panu; Kauppinen, Ilpo |
| Abstract: | We study attitudes towards income redistribution in the country of origin among emigrants from a welfare state, and those who stay there. We find a striking gender difference among Danish emigrants. Majority of men opposes increasing income redistribution in Denmark, while majority of women supports it. Also among non-migrants, women are somewhat more positive towards redistribution, but the gender difference is much smaller. We study to what extent differences in attitudes towards redistribution are driven by beliefs about the determinants of individual success, generalized trust, assimilation to the new home country, and self-selection of emigrants. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 D72 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145884&r=mig |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A. (Center for Global Development); Postel, Hannah M. (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | We report a small-sample, preliminary evaluation of the economic impact of temporary overseas work by Haitian agricultural workers. This work occurs in the United States in the context of a pilot program designed as a form of post-disaster development assistance to Haiti. We find that the effects of matching new seasonal agricultural jobs in the US with Haitian workers differs markedly from the effects of more traditional forms of assistance to Haiti, in three ways: The economic benefits are shared roughly equally between Haiti and the United States; these benefits are very large, including raising the value of Haitian workers' labor by a multiple of fifteen; and the portion of the benefits accruing to Haiti is uncommonly well targeted for the direct benefit of poor Haitian households. We discuss implementation challenges faced by the program and the potential for policies of this kind to complement more traditional forms of development and humanitarian assistance. |
| Keywords: | development, policy, aid, assistance, migration, mobility, poverty, guest work, agriculture, farm |
| JEL: | F22 O15 O22 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10548&r=mig |
| By: | Ramon Cobo-Reyes (Department of Economics, University of Exeter); Gabriel Katz (Department of Politics, University of Exeter); Simone Meraglia? (Department of Economics, University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | We experimentally analyze the effect of the endogenous choice of sanctioning institutions on cooperation and migration patterns across societies. In our experiment, subjects are allocated to one of two groups, are endowed with group-specific preferences, and play a public goods game for 30 periods. Each period, subjects can move between groups and, at fixed intervals, can vote on whether to implement formal (centralized) sanctioning institutions in their group. We compare this environment to one in which only one group is exogenously endowed with sanctioning institutions. We find that subjects' ability to vote on institutions leads to (i) a more efficient partition of subjects between groups, (ii) a lower migration rate, (iii) an increase in overall payoffs, and (iv) a decrease in both inter- and intra-groups (payoff) inequality. Over time, subjects tend to vote for sanctioning institutions and contribute to the public good. |
| Keywords: | Formal Sanctions, Cooperation, Migration, Voting, Experiment. |
| JEL: | C73 C91 C92 D72 H41 H73 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:1702&r=mig |
| By: | Slotwinski, Michaela (University of Basel); Stutzer, Alois (University of Basel); Gorinas, Cédric (Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI)) |
| Abstract: | Many people are concerned about societal cohesion in the face of higher numbers of foreigners migrating to Western democracies. The challenge for the future is to find and adopt institutions that foster integration. We investigate how the right to vote in local elections affects immigrants' compliance with the law. In our study for Denmark, we exploit an institutional regulation that grants foreigners local voting rights after three years of stay. Relying on register data, we find causal evidence that the first possibility to vote considerably reduces the number of legal offenses of non-Western male immigrants in the time after elections. |
| Keywords: | migration, voting rights, immigrant integration, crime, RDD |
| JEL: | D02 K42 J15 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10550&r=mig |
| By: | Ljubica Nedelkoska (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Ricardo Hausmann (Center for International Development at Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | Albanian migrants in Greece were particularly affected by the Greek crisis, which spurred a wave of return migration that increased Albania’s labor force by 5% between 2011 and 2014 alone. We study how this return migration affected the employment chances and earnings of Albanians who never migrated. We find positive effects on the wages of low-skilled non-migrants and overall positive effects on employment. The gains partially offset the sharp drop in remittances in the observed period. The employment gains are concentrated in the agricultural sector, where most return migrants engage in self-employment and entrepreneurship. Businesses run by return migrants seem to pull Albanians from non-participation, self-employment and subsistence agriculture into commercial agriculture. |
| JEL: | J21 J23 J24 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:330&r=mig |
| By: | D'Ambrosio, Anna; Montresor, Sandro; Parrilli, Mario Davide; Quatraro, Francesco (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of migration on innovation networks between regions and foreign countries. We posit that immigrants (emigrants) act as a transnational knowledge bridge between the host (home) regions and their origin (destination) countries, reinforcing their networking in innovation and facilitating their co-inventorship. We argue that the social capital of both the hosting and the moving communities reinforces such a bridging role, along with the already recognised effect of language commonality and migrants’ human capital. By combining patent data with national data on residents and electors abroad, we apply a gravity model to the co-inventorship between Spanish provinces (NUTS3 regions) and a number of foreign countries, in different periods of the last decade. Both immigrants and emigrants are found to affect this kind of innovation networking. The social capital of both the moving and the hosting communities actually moderate this impact in a positive way. The effect of migration is stronger for more skilled migrants and with respect to non-Spanish speaking countries, pointing to a language-bridging role of migrants. Overall, individual and community aspects combine in accounting for the impact of migration on international innovation networks. |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201701&r=mig |
| By: | Razin, Assaf |
| Abstract: | The exodus of Soviet Jews to Israel in the 1990s was a unique event. The extraordinary experience of Israel, which has received three quarter million migrants from the Former Soviet Union, amounting to 17 percent of its population, within a short time, is also relevant for the current debate about migration and globalization. The immigration wave was distinctive for its large high skilled cohort, and its quick integration into the domestic labor market. Immigration also changed the entire economic landscape: it raised productivity, underpinning technological prowess, and had significant impact on income inequality and the level of redistribution in Israel's welfare state. |
| JEL: | F22 F6 H00 J1 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11877&r=mig |
| By: | Beyer, Robert |
| Abstract: | The paper uses a large survey (GSOEP) to analyze the labor market performance of immigrants in Germany. It finds that new immigrant workers earn on average 20 percent less than native workers with otherwise identical characteristics. The gap is smaller for immigrants from advanced countries, with good German language skills, and with a German degree, and larger for others. The gap declines gradually over time. Less success in obtaining jobs with higher occupational autonomy explains half of the wage gap. Immigrants are also initially less likely to participate in the labor market and more likely to be unemployed. While participation fully converges after 20 years, immigrants always remain more likely to be unemployed than the native labor force. |
| JEL: | E24 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145799&r=mig |
| By: | Acharyya, Rajat; Kar, Saibal |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that trade and emigration of skilled workers from a poor country is complementary but that between trade and emigration of unskilled workers is a substitute. The asymmetric effect of more openness to trade on the local wages seems to be crucial in driving such results. The asymmetric changes in skilled and unskilled wages generate counterintuitive outcomes regardless of the policy shock that triggers such wage effect. One of the more compelling outcomes is rise in wage inequality as influenced by asymmetric emigration patterns. |
| Keywords: | Trade,emigration,skilled labour,specific factor,remittances,tax |
| JEL: | F22 J64 O15 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:4&r=mig |
| By: | Cebreros Zurita Carlos Alfonso;Chiquiar Daniel;Roa Mónica;Tobal Martín |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a standard model of international trade and makes three contributions. First, it shows that when the welfare function of the recipient country reflects the utility of natives, free-trade and free-migration generate isomorphic results, that is, they increase overall welfare but redistribute income by reducing the returns of the scarce factor. Although this result is frequently evoked in academic circles, this document shows that the equivalence holds for the most relevant measure of welfare from a political economy perspective. Second, this equivalence is extended to the public policy domain: for each level of trade restrictions mutually imposed, it is found an immigration tax that generates the same redistribution and welfare impacts. Third, in the light of these results, the model is enlarged to illustrate a channel through which political economy concerns may influence immigration policy. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Political Economy, International Trade |
| JEL: | F22 F13 D72 D78 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2017-03&r=mig |
| By: | Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina; Arenas-Arroy, Esther |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits the temporal and geographic variation in the implementation of local and state immigration enforcement measures to identify their impact on undocumented immigrants’ fertility. Using data from the 2005 through 2014 American Community Survey, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the intensity of immigration enforcement lowers the childbearing likelihood of likely undocumented women by 6.3 percent. This effect appears driven by police-based measures and, the fact that is present among intact families, families headed by a likely undocumented couple, as well as among the poorest families, suggests the importance of limited income resources, along with increased uncertainty emanating from an intensified fear of deportation, on likely unauthorized women’s fertility. Given immigrants’ critical contribution to the sustainability of the welfare state and the spread-out embracement of a piece-meal approach to immigration enforcement, further exploration of this impact is warranted and recommended. |
| Keywords: | Fertility,Immigration Enforcement,Undocumented Immigration,United States |
| JEL: | J13 J15 K37 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1&r=mig |
| By: | Haußen, Tina; Haussen, Tina |
| Abstract: | We empirically analyze job changes and related location choices for graduates in Germany and its determinants. Using a longitudinal, representative survey-based dataset, we not only observe the transition of graduates to the labor market but also every subsequent job change within five years after graduation. Contrary to what is often assumed in the literature, our findings show that around 75% of the graduates have more than one job within our observation period and for a non-negligible share of them, job changes are related to interregional migration. Whereas job changes mostly depend on the field of study and previous employment conditions, migration is predominantly affected by previous migration paths and regional characteristics. |
| JEL: | J61 R11 I23 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145618&r=mig |
| By: | Giesing, Yvonne; Laurentsyeva, Nadzeya |
| Abstract: | This paper establishes a causal link between the emigration of skilled workers and firm performance. We exploit time, country, and industry differences in the opening of EU labour markets from 2004 to 2014 as a source of exogenous variation in the emigration rates from new EU member states. Using firm-level panel data from ten East European countries, we show that the outflow of skilled workers reduces firm total factor productivity and increases personnel costs. One explanation for this effect is the increased job turnover, which lowers firm-specific human capital. We find that the most productive firms adapt more easily to emigration as they are better able to retain and train their workers. |
| JEL: | F22 O15 D24 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145850&r=mig |
| By: | White, Michael (Policy Studies Institute); Bryson, Alex (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Using nationally representative workplace data for Britain we identify the partial correlation between workplace wages and the percentage of migrants employed at a workplace. We find wages are lower in workplaces employing a higher percentage of migrants, but only when those migrants are non-EEA migrants. However, the effects are no longer apparent when we condition on the ethnic complexion of employees at the workplace. Instead, the wage penalty is attached to the percentage of non-white employees, a finding that is consistent with employer discrimination on grounds of race, or lower worker bargaining power when employees are ethnically diverse. |
| Keywords: | migrants, migration, ethnicity, race, wages, earnings, low pay, discrimination |
| JEL: | J31 J61 J71 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10549&r=mig |
| By: | Feng, Bo; Partridge, Mark; Rembert, Mark |
| Abstract: | The impact of climate change has drawn growing interests from both researchers and policymakers. Yet, relatively little is known with respect to its influence on interregional migration. The surge of extreme weather conditions could lead to the increase of forced migration from coastal to inland regions, which normally follows different patterns than voluntary migration. However, recent migration models tend to predict unrealistic migration trends under climate change in that migration would flow towards the areas most adversely affected. Given the great uncertainty about the magnitude and distribution of severe weather events, it is almost impossible to foresee migration directions by simply extrapolating from the data on how people have responded in the past to climate and weather. For example, weather events will likely be far outside of what has been observed. Other issues include a poor climate measures and a poor understanding of how climate affects migration in an entirely different structural environment. Unintended consequence of public policies also contributes to the complication of predicting future migration pattern. In this paper, we survey the limitations of existing climate change literature, explore insights of regional economic studies, and provide potential solutions to those issues. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change; Migration; Prediction |
| JEL: | C53 Q54 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:77059&r=mig |