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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Ortega, Francesc (Queens College, CUNY); Edwards, Ryan (University of California, Berkeley); Hsin, Amy (Queens College, CUNY) |
| Abstract: | This study quantifies the economic effects of two major immigration reforms aimed at legalizing undocumented individuals that entered the United States as children and completed high school: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the DREAM Act. The former offers only temporary legal status to eligible individuals; the latter provides a track to legal permanent residence. Our analysis is based on a general-equilibrium model that allows for shifts in participation between work, college and non-employment. The model is calibrated to account for productivity differences across workers of different skills and documentation status, and a rich pattern of complementarities across different types of workers. We estimate DACA increased GDP by almost 0.02% (about $3.5 billion), or $7,454 per legalized worker. Passing the DREAM Act would increase GDP by around 0.08% (or $15.2 billion), which amounts to an average of $15,371 for each legalized worker. The larger effects of the DREAM Act stem from the expected larger take-up and the increased incentive to attend college among DREAMers with a high school degree. We also find substantial wage increases for individuals obtaining legal status, particularly for individuals that increase their educational attainment. Because of the small size of the DREAMer population, legalization entails negligible effects on the wages of US-born workers. |
| Keywords: | immigration, DREAMers, legalization, undocumented |
| JEL: | D7 F22 H52 H75 J61 I22 I24 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11281&r=mig |
| By: | Altangerel, Khulan (Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management); van Ours, Jan (Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management) |
| Abstract: | The 1986 US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was directed at tackling the problem of growing unauthorized migration through legalization of unauthorized immigrants, increasing border security and sanctioning employers who hired unauthorized immigrants. Our paper investigates how the IRCA affected the migration dynamics of male Mexican immigrants focusing on their age of onset of migration and the duration of their first trip. We find that the IRCA reduced unauthorized migration to the US while it does not seem to have had a significant effect on the return rate from the US to Mexico of undocumented male immigrants. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiutis:ed2fd098-2862-4d6a-9909-e955b8276e98&r=mig |
| By: | Michel Beine (CREA, Université du Luxembourg); Lionel Jeusette (CREA, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | Recent surveys of the literature devoted to climate change and migration emphasize the important diversity of outcomes and approaches of the empirical studies. In this paper, we carry out a meta-analysis in order to investigate the role of the various methodological choices of these empirical studies in finding some particular results concerning the role of climatic factors as drivers of human mobility. To that aim, we code 45 papers representative of the existing literature in terms of methodological approaches. The approaches are characterized by coding more than 80 variables capturing the methodology of the main dimensions of the methods. These dimensions include among others authors’ reputation, type of mobility, measures of mobility, type of data, context of the study, econometric methods and last but not least measures of the climatic factors. We look at the influence of these characteristics on different outcomes of the regressions: probability of finding any effect, finding a displacement effect, finding an increase in immobility, finding evidence in favour of a direct versus an indirect effect. Our results highlight the role of some main methodological choices, such as the frequency of the data on mobility, the level of development of the covered area, the particular measures of human mobility and of the climatic factors as well as the econometric methodology. |
| Keywords: | Climate change; Human mobility; Econometric regressions; Meta-analysis; Natural disasters. |
| JEL: | C83 F22 J61 Q54 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:18-05&r=mig |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A.; Hunt, Jennifer |
| Abstract: | An influential strand of research has tested for the effects of immigration on natives’ wages and employment using exogenous refugee supply shocks as natural experiments. Several studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the effects of noted refugee waves such as the Mariel Boatlift in Miami and post-Soviet refugees to Israel. We show that conflicting findings on the effects of the Mariel Boatlift can be explained by a large difference in the pre- and post-Boatlift racial composition in subsamples of the Current Population Survey extracts. This compositional change is specific to Miami, unrelated to the Boatlift, and arises from selecting small subsamples of workers. We also show that conflicting findings on the labor market effects of other important refugee waves are caused by spurious correlation between the instrument and the endogenous variable introduced by applying a common divisor to both. As a whole, the evidence from refugee waves reinforces the existing consensus that the impact of immigration on average native-born workers is small, and fails to substantiate claims of large detrimental impacts on workers with less than high school |
| Keywords: | refugees; immigration; instrumental variables |
| JEL: | J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86582&r=mig |
| By: | Martina Burmann; Marcus Drometer; Romuald Méango |
| Abstract: | Despite the recognition that asylum policies are partly determined by political economy factors in the destination country, there is little empirical evidence on the precise linkages between those political factors and asylum policies. We shed light on this issue by examining the impact of elections and parties on first-time asylum applications. Our evidence is based on a large bilateral panel data set comprising 12 European destination countries and their 51 most relevant origin countries during the time period 2002 to 2014. Our findings suggest that the number of asylum applicants under left- and right-wing parties converges before elections and differs thereafter. This result is robust to several different specifications and suggests that both left- and rightwing cabinets choose moderate policies before the election and less moderate policies after the election. |
| Keywords: | Electoral cycles, migration policies |
| JEL: | H11 D72 F22 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_245&r=mig |
| By: | Anna Nicińska (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates transfers given by different donors to parents in need for help whose children migrated abroad. We develop a formal model of time and money transfers given to the elderly parents by kin and non-kin individuals taking into account the elderly’s social network and proximity between transfer’s donor and recipient. We find that migrant children specialize in money and non-migrant children in time transfers, provided that the difference in wages and proximity between siblings is substantial, and parental social networks do not compress. The dynamics in the size and composition of parent’s social network triggered by child’s migration affects the transfers received by parents not only from children, but also from other individuals. The overall effect on total time transfers might be positive even if donors decide to decrease their transfers of time, provided that the set of donors is enlarged. |
| Keywords: | private transfers, care, time transfers, money transfers, kinship, family, social network, proximity, migration, ageing, elderly |
| JEL: | D02 D03 D19 D64 H31 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2018-05&r=mig |
| By: | Arnaud Dupuy (CREA, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a model encompassing both Becker's matching model, and Tinbergen-Rosen's hedonic model. We study its properties and provide identification and estimation strategies. Using data on internal migration in China, we estimate the model and compute equilibrium under counter-factual alternatives to decompose the migration surplus. Our findings reveal that about 1/5 of the migration surplus of migrant women is generated in the marriage market and 3/5 in the labor market. We also find that the welfare of urban men married with a migrant wife would have been 10% lower had their migrant wives not entered the urban marriage market. |
| Keywords: | Sorting in many local markets, marriage market, hedonic and matching models. |
| JEL: | D3 J21 J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:18-06&r=mig |
| By: | Chakra Pani Acharya (National Planning Commission Secretariat, Kathmandu, Nepal); Roberto Leon-Gonzalez (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan) |
| Abstract: | Despite a large growth in domestic and international migration and remittances in recent decades, there are limited works that systematically identify and establish interactions between internal and international migration. Using primary data from new urban areas of Nepal, we identify households that had migrated from rural to urban areas, explore their migration practices and educational investment behaviors, and analyze the effects of international migration and remittances on investment in education. The results show that, despite their lower income and consumption, migrant households that have members abroad have higher human capital investment measured by the level and budget share of expenditure on children fs education and the time their children spend for studying at home than do urban-native and other types of migrant households. Our findings suggest that searching for better education is one important motivation for migrating to urban areas among rural households having members abroad. |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ngi:dpaper:17-13&r=mig |
| By: | Julia Jauer (German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs); Thomas Liebig (OECD, Paris); John Martin (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin); Patrick Puhani (Leibniz Universität Hannover) |
| Abstract: | We estimate whether migration can be an equilibrating force in the labour market by comparing pre- and post-crisis migration movements at the regional level in both Europe and the United States, and their association with asymmetric labour market shocks. Based on fixed-effects regressions using regional panel data, we find that Europe’s migratory response to unemployment shocks was almost identical to that recorded in the United States after the crisis. Our estimates suggest that, if all measured population changes in Europe were due to migration for employment purposes – i.e. an upper-bound estimate – up to about a quarter of the asymmetric labour market shock would be absorbed by migration within a year. However, in Europe and especially in the Eurozone, the reaction to a very large extent stems from migration of recent EU accession country citizens as well as of third-country nationals. |
| Keywords: | free mobility, migration, economic crisis, labour market adjustment, Eurozone, Europe, United States |
| JEL: | F15 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1803&r=mig |
| By: | Anthony Edo; Yvonne Giesing; Jonathan Öztunc; Panu Poutvaara |
| Abstract: | Immigration has become one of the most divisive political issues in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and several other Western countries. We estimate the impact of immigration on voting for far-left and far-right parties in France, using panel data on presidential elections from 1988 to 2012. To derive causal estimates, we instrument more recent immigration flows by past settlement patterns in 1968. We find that immigration increases support for far-right candidates and has no robust effect on far-left voting. The increased support for far-right candidates is driven by low-skilled immigrants from non-Western countries. |
| Keywords: | Voting, immigration, political economy |
| JEL: | D72 F22 J15 P16 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_244&r=mig |
| By: | Francesco Fasani (QMUL, CReAM, IZA and CEPR); Tommaso Frattini (University of Milan, LdA, CReAM, IZA and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use repeated cross-sectional survey data to study the labour market performance of refugees across several EU countries and over time. In the first part, we document that labour market outcomes for refugees are consistently worse than those of other comparable migrants. The gap remains sizeable even after controlling for individual characteristics as well as for cohort and destination country. Refugees are 11.6 percent less likely to have a job and 22.1 percent more likely to be unemployed than migrants with similar characteristics. Moreover, their income, occupational quality and labour market participation are also relatively weaker. This gap persists until about 10 years after immigration. In the second part, we assess the role of asylum policies in explaining the observed refugee gap. We conduct a difference-in-differences analysis that exploits the differential timing of dispersal policy enactment across European countries: we show that refugee cohorts exposed to these policies have persistently worse labour market outcomes. Further, we find that entry cohorts admitted when refugee status recognition rates are relatively high integrate better into the host country labour market. |
| Keywords: | Asylum seekers; assimilation; refugee gap; asylum policies. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J15 |
| Date: | 2018–02–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:435&r=mig |
| By: | Coban, Mustafa |
| Abstract: | Combining the link between ethnic heterogeneity, attitudes towards immigrants, and the support of redistribution, predictions are made about natives' preference for redistribution depending on interethnic contact, perceived outgroup threats, and natives' social distance from immigrants. The econometric specification explicitly considers the simultaneous effects of ethnic heterogeneity on attitudes towards immigrants and those attitudes on the redistribution preference. Applying bivariate recursive probit estimations enables the decomposition of marginal effects into a direct and an indirect effect. The empirical assessment, based on a cross-section of 18 European countries from 2014, shows that natives' perceived outgroup threats directly decrease their preference for redistribution, whereas interethnic contact indirectly increases their redistribution preference through less anti-immigrant attitudes. If immigrants are perceived as a threat to the culture or social life in a country, a native's probability of supporting more governmental redistribution decreases by 6.4 percent or 8.2 percent, respectively. However, if ethnic heterogeneity rises, this probability increases by 0.8 percent. In contrast, there is no significant association between natives' social distance from immigrants and their preference for redistribution. These results are robust to IV estimation strategies which control for the possibility of natives' selective out-migration and reverse causality. Taking the natives' and immigrants' average incomes into account, the ethnic income gap between natives and immigrants strengthens the negative impact of perceived outgroup threats if immigrants earn much less than natives in a country. |
| Keywords: | preference for redistribution,immigration,ethnic diversity,attitudes towards immigrants,bivariate recursive probit |
| JEL: | C30 D31 D63 D72 F22 H20 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wuewwb:137&r=mig |
| By: | Caliendo, Lorenzo; Opromolla, Luca David; Parro, Fernando; Sforza, Alessandro |
| Abstract: | The economic effects from labor market integration are crucially affected by the extent to which countries are open to trade. In this paper we build a multi-country dynamic general equi- librium model with trade in goods and labor mobility across countries to study and quantify the economic effects of trade and labor market integration. In our model trade is costly and features households of different skills and nationalities facing costly forward-looking relocation decisions. We use the EU Labour Force Survey to construct migration flows by skill and na- tionality across 17 countries for the period 2002-2007. We then exploit the timing variation of the 2004 EU enlargement to estimate the elasticity of migration flows to labor mobility costs, and to identify the change in labor mobility costs associated to the actual change in policy. We apply our model and use these estimates, as well as the observed changes in tariffs, to quantify the effects from the EU enlargement. We find that new member state countries are the largest winners from the EU enlargement, and in particular unskilled labor. We find smaller welfare gains for EU-15 countries. However, in the absence of changes to trade policy, the EU-15 would have been worse off after the enlargement. We study even further the interaction effects between trade and migration policies and the role of different mechanisms in shaping our results. Our results highlight the importance of trade for the quantification of the welfare and migration effects from labor market integration |
| Keywords: | international trade; factor mobility; market integration; EU enlargement; welfare |
| JEL: | E24 F13 F16 F22 J61 R13 |
| Date: | 2017–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86586&r=mig |
| By: | Hou, Feng; Prokopenko, Elena |
| Abstract: | Temporary foreign worker programs have become an increasingly important component of international migration to Western developed countries. However, there is little knowledge on how long foreign workers stay in the host country and what determinants are associated with their migratory trajectories. Using a national longitudinal administrative dataset of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in Canada, this study examines their length and type of stay in Canada. It further examines the likelihood of staying given individual demographic characteristics, source-country attributes, host-country institutional factors and local community conditions. |
| Keywords: | Citizenship, Ethnic diversity and immigration, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Labour, Labour market and income, Wages, salaries and other earnings |
| Date: | 2018–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2018402e&r=mig |
| By: | Brodeur, Abel; Lekfuangfu, Warn N.; Zylberberg, Yanos |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the determinants behind the spatial distribution of the sex industry in Thailand. We relate the development of the sex industry to an early temporary demand shock, i.e., U.S. military presence during the Vietnam War. Comparing the surroundings of Thai military bases used by the U.S. army to districts close to unused Thai bases, we find that there are currently 5 times more commercial sex workers in districts near former U.S. bases. The development of the sex industry is also explained by a high price elasticity of supply due to female migration from regions affected by an agricultural crisis. Finally, we study a consequence induced by the large numbers of sex workers in few red-light districts: the HIV outbreak in the early 1990s |
| JEL: | I28 N15 O17 O18 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86581&r=mig |
| By: | Tommaso Frattini (University of Milan); Elena Meschi (University of Venice Ca'Foscari) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on how the presence of immigrant peers in the classroom affects native student achievement. The analysis is based on longitudinal administrative data on two cohorts of vocational training students in Italy’s largest region. Vocational training institutions provide the ideal setting for studying these effects because they attract not only disproportionately high shares of immigrants but also the lowest ability native students. We adopt a value added model, and exploit within-school variation both within and across cohorts for identification. Our results show small negative average effects on maths test scores that are larger for low ability native students, strongly non-linear and only observable in classes with a high (top 20%) immigrant concentration. These outcomes are driven by classes with a high average linguistic distance between immigrants and natives, with no apparent role played by ethnic diversity. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, education, peer effects, vocational training, language |
| JEL: | I20 J15 |
| Date: | 2017–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:430&r=mig |
| By: | Teichert, Christian; Niebuhr, Annekatrin (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Otto, Anne (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Rossen, Anja (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "We use administrative social security records and event history methods to investigate graduate migration in Germany. The results indicate that most migration events happen up to seven years after graduation. Work experience gathered before and during the studies influences the migration decision, pointing to the importance of labour market contacts and social networks. In contrast to previous studies we do not detect a genuine negative duration dependence for the probability of leaving the region of study. When labour market entry outside the university region is considered there is some indication for cumulative stress." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Hochschulabsolventen, regionale Mobilität, Studienabschluss, Abwanderung, Hochschule, Standort, Mobilitätsbereitschaft - Determinanten, regionaler Arbeitsmarkt, soziale Beziehungen, Berufseinmündung, Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien |
| JEL: | C41 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2018–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201803&r=mig |
| By: | Guido Friebel (Goethe University Frankfurt, CEPR and IZA); Miriam Manchin (University College of London); Mariapia Mendola (Università di Milano-Bicocca and IZA); Giovanni Prarolo (Università di Bologna) |
| Abstract: | Africa-to-Europe irregular migration depends heavily on human smuggling services. The demise of the Gaddafi regime in 2011 marked the end of a bilateral agreement between Italy and Libya and opened the Central Mediterranean Route for irregular border crossing. How did this remarkable increase in human smuggling services affect migration intentions in the rest of the region? This paper isolates a causal impact by exploiting the spatial dimension of the smuggling network and its change over time, which produced a heterogeneous decrease in bilateral migration distances between countries in Africa and Europe. We use this source of variation and a novel dataset of bilateral distances along irregular land and sea routes, combined with cross-country survey data on individual intentions to move from Africa to Europe between 2010 and 2012. Netting out pair- and country-by-time-specific fixed effects, we find a large negative effect of distance along smuggling routes on individual migration intentions. Shorter distances increase the willingness to migrate especially for youth, (medium) skilled individuals and those with a network abroad. The effect is stronger in origin countries not too far from Libya and with weak rule of law. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Human Smuggling, Illegal Migration, Libyan Civil War |
| JEL: | K23 K42 |
| Date: | 2018–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:432&r=mig |