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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | William N. Evans; Daniel Fitzgerald |
| Abstract: | Using data from the 2010-2014 American Community Survey, we use a procedure suggested by Capps et al. (2015) to identify refugees from the larger group of immigrants to examine the outcomes of refugees relocated to the U.S. Among young adults, we show that refugees that enter the U.S. before age 14 graduate high school and enter college at the same rate as natives. Refugees that enter as older teenagers have lower attainment with much of the difference attributable to language barriers and because many in this group are not accompanied by a parent to the U.S. Among refugees that entered the U.S. at ages 18-45, we follow respondents’ outcomes over a 20-year period in a synthetic cohort. Refugees have much lower levels of education and poorer language skills than natives and outcomes are initially poor with low employment, high welfare use and low earnings. Outcomes improve considerably as refugees age. After 6 years in the country, these refugees work at higher rates than natives but they never attain the earning levels of U.S.-born respondents. Using the NBER TAXSIM program, we estimate that refugees pay $21,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits over their first 20 years in the U.S. |
| JEL: | J1 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23498&r=mig |
| By: | Braun, Sebastian; Dwenger, Nadja |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the local environment in receiving counties affected the economic, social, and political integration of the eight million expellees who arrived in West Germany after World War II. We first document that integration outcomes differed dramatically across West German counties. We then show that more industrialized counties and counties with low expellee inflows were much more successful in integrating expellees than agrarian counties and counties with high in inflows. Religious differences between native West Germans and expellees had no effect on labor market outcomes, but reduced inter-marriage rates and increased the local support for anti-expellee parties. |
| Keywords: | Expellees,Forced migration,Immigration,Integration,Post-War Germany |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N34 C36 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohdps:102017&r=mig |
| By: | Ahimbisibwe, Frank |
| Abstract: | Uganda is a host country to refugees from neighboring countries including Rwanda. By the end of 2015, Uganda was the 8th and 3rd top refugee hosting country in the world and Africa respectively with around 512,968 refugees on its soil. This number had increased to over 900,000 by December 2016. By May 2017, Uganda was the second refugee hosting country in the world, with over 1.2 million refugees. Although Uganda has been praised world wide as being friendly to refugees, its policy and treatment of Rwandan refugees has been inconsistent with international obligations. There is a discrepancy between the rights they are entitled to under international and municipal law and the ones they enjoy in practice. This article analyzes this discrepancy from the refugees’ point of view by focusing on specific rights like non-discrimination, life, asylum, liberty and security of person and the principle of non-refoulement. The paper inquires into the factors behind Uganda’s violation of Rwandan refugee rights and proposes measures for enhancing the protection of their rights. |
| Keywords: | Rwanda; Uganda; refugees; human rights |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iob:wpaper:201707&r=mig |
| By: | Ahimbisibwe, Frank |
| Abstract: | Uganda hosts refugees from neighboring countries including Rwanda. By May 2017, Uganda was the second refugee hosting country in the world, with over 1.2 million refugees. In 2003, a tripartite agreement was signed to repatriate 25,000 Rwandan refugees. Only 850 refugees accepted to return and most of them came back almost immediately to Uganda on the grounds of insecurity and human rights violations in Rwanda. Although legal principles and norms exist on voluntary repatriation, they have been violated in the case of the Rwandans’ repatriation. There exists a gap between the legal principles and the practice of repatriation. This article analyzes this discrepancy from the refugees’ point of view by focusing on specific legalprinciples of repatriation. |
| Keywords: | Rwanda; Uganda; refugees |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iob:wpaper:201706&r=mig |
| By: | Ilaria De Angelis (Bank of Italy); Vincenzo Mariani (Bank of Italy); Roberto Torrini (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | A relatively low geographical mobility of students in the Centre and North of the country and a large incidence of movers from southern regions to universities located in the Centre and North are well-established features of the Italian academic system. Exploiting a novel administrative dataset on academic enrolments, this paper shows that the interregional mobility of Italian students has increased in recent years. We highlight that the increase in mobility, which has occurred in a period of declining entry rates, is not attributable to a change in the composition of the enrolling students. We investigate some of the main drivers of student mobility by relating regional flows to the attractiveness of universities and show that mobility is positively associated with the quality of research and teaching and with the job prospects offered by the hosting university. Student flows are instead negatively correlated with the distance between the university and the region of origin and with drop-out rates. The empirical evidence also suggests that in recent years the distance from the university of destination has become less relevant in explaining mobility, whereas the role played by university quality has increased. |
| Keywords: | university, student mobility, quality of research, labour market JEL Classification: I20, I23 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_380_17&r=mig |
| By: | Vellore Arthi; Brian Beach; W. Walker Hanlon |
| Abstract: | A large literature following Ruhm (2000) suggests that mortality falls during recessions and rises during booms. The panel-data approach used to generate these results assumes that either there is no substantial migration response to temporary changes in local economic conditions, or that any such response is accurately captured by intercensal population estimates. To assess the importance of these assumptions, we examine two natural experiments: the recession in cotton textile-producing districts of Britain during the U.S. Civil War, and the coal boom in Appalachian counties of the U.S. that followed the OPEC oil embargo in the 1970s. In both settings, we find evidence of a substantial migratory response. Moreover, we show that estimates of the relationship between business cycles and mortality are highly sensitive to assumptions related to migration. After adjusting for migration, we find that mortality increased during the cotton recession, but was largely unaffected by the coal boom. Overall, our results suggest that migration can meaningfully bias estimates of the impact of business-cycle fluctuations on mortality. |
| JEL: | I1 J60 N32 N33 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23507&r=mig |
| By: | George J. Borjas |
| Abstract: | Card’s (1990) study of the Mariel supply shock remains an important cornerstone of both the literature that measures the labor market impact of immigration, and of the “stylized fact” that immigration might not have much impact on the wage of workers in a receiving country. My recent reappraisal of the Mariel evidence (Borjas, 2017) revealed that the wage of low-skill workers in Miami declined substantially in the years after Mariel, and has already encouraged a number of re-reexaminations. Most recently, Clemens and Hunt (2017) argue that a data quirk in the CPS implies that wage trends in the sample of non-Hispanic prime-age men examined in my paper does not correctly represent what happened to wages in post-Mariel Miami. Specifically, there was a substantial increase in the black share of Miami’s low-skill workforce in the relevant period (particularly between the 1979 and 1980 survey years of the March CPS). Because African-American men earn less than white men, this increase in the black share would spuriously produce a drop in the average low-skill wage in Miami. This paper examines the robustness of the evidence presented in my original paper to statistical adjustments that control for the increasing number of black men in Miami’s low-skill workforce. The evidence consistently indicates that the race-adjusted low-skill wage in Miami fell significantly relative to the wage in other labor markets shortly after 1980 before fully recovering by 1990. |
| JEL: | J0 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23504&r=mig |
| By: | Hatton, Timothy J. |
| Abstract: | There is growing interest among economists in public opinion towards immigration, something that is often seen as the foundation for restrictive immigration policies. Existing studies have focused on the responses to survey questions on whether the individual would prefer more or less immigration but not on his or her assessment of its importance as a policy issue. Here I distinguish between preference and salience. Analysis of data from the European Social Survey and Eurobarometer indicates that these are associated with different individual-level characteristics. At the national level these two dimensions of public opinion move differently over time and in response to different macro-level variables. The results suggest that both dimensions need to be taken into account when assessing the overall climate of public opinion towards immigration. Finally, there is some evidence that both preference and salience are important influences on immigration policy. |
| Keywords: | Attitudes to Immigration; Public Opinion; salience |
| JEL: | D72 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12084&r=mig |