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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Fornaro, Paolo; Maliranta, Mika; Rouvinen, Petri |
| Abstract: | Abstract We study immigrants’ effects on firm-level innovativeness. Managers, innovators, and other employees are considered as separate groups both in firm employment and in local areas. For each, we estimate the effects of foreignness, the share of immigrants in each group, and diversity, while controlling for an extensive set of employment and other firm characteristics. Pooled cross-section estimates suggest that a higher initial share of immigrant innovators is associated with a subsequently higher probability of a product innovation; the reverse holds for process innovation. In other words, product innovation benefits from a wider spectrum of innovator perspectives brought about by foreign influence, while process innovation suffers from it. The estimated effect for product innovation is modestly large but nevertheless indicates that a host of other covariates besides immigration are important for innovation. When measured by a fractionalization index, diversity among innovators does not promote product innovation. However, culturally the closest groups of migrants have a positive effect, when considered independently. Thus, in our interpretation, diversity does offer some benefits, provided that enough cultural homogeneity of the group is retained. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Ethnicity, Diversity, Innovation, Knowledge production function, Finland |
| JEL: | D22 F22 J61 O31 |
| Date: | 2019–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:wpaper:63&r=all |
| By: | Sari Pekkala Kerr; William R. Kerr |
| Abstract: | Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one's own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge Innovation Center. CIC is widely considered the center of the Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem. We surveyed 1,334 people working at CIC in three locations spread across the Boston area and CIC's first expansion facility in St. Louis, MO. Survey responses show that immigrants value networking capabilities in CIC more than natives, and the networks developed by immigrants at CIC tend to be larger. Immigrants report substantially greater rates of giving and receiving advice than natives for six surveyed factors: business operations, venture financing, technology, suppliers, people to recruit, and customers. The structure and composition of CIC floors has only a modest influence on these immigrant versus native differences. |
| JEL: | D85 F22 M13 O30 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25509&r=all |
| By: | Sara Signorelli (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In recent yearsWestern countries are expressing growing concerns about the regulation of migration flows and many are considering adopting some form of selective immigration policy. This paper analyzes the labor market effects of one of such reforms introduced in France in 2008 with the aim of encouraging the inflow of foreign workers with skills that are scarce among the local labor force. The analysis relies on administrative employer-employee data and it is based on a difference-in-differences approach. Results show that the reform increased the hiring of foreign workers in target occupations without causing any harm to native employment. As a result, the overall stock of labor grew in these jobs. Entry wages are lowered by 4% among natives and by 9% among foreigners, suggesting that these two groups may not be perfect substitutes, even when they are employed for the exact same task. Yet, the negative pressure on salaries seems to disappear after the first three years, as opposed to the positive impact on employment. The effects are stronger for the occupations with the most severe lack of native candidates and for those with an average salary largely above the minimum wage, indicating that the reform was successful in attracting candidates with rare skills and relatively high productivity. |
| Keywords: | Immigration,Employment,Wage,Occupations,France |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01983071&r=all |
| By: | Anne Sofie Beck Knudsen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the joint evolution of emigration and individualism in Scandinavia during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1920). A long-standing hypothesis holds that people of a stronger individualistic mindset are more likely to migrate as they suffer lower costs of abandoning existing social networks. Building on this hypothesis, I propose a theory of cultural change where migrant self-selection generates a relative push away from individualism, and towards collectivism, in migrantsending locations through a combination of initial distributional e¤ects and channels of intergenerational cultural transmission. Due to the interdependent relationship between emigration and individualism, emigration is furthermore associated with cultural convergence across subnational locations. I combine various sources of empirical data, including historical population census records and passenger lists of emigrants, and test the relevant elements of the proposed theory at the individual and subnational district level, and in the short and long run. Together, the empirical results suggest that individualists were more likely to migrate than collectivists, and that the Scandinavian countries would have been considerably more individualistic and culturally diverse, had emigration not taken place. |
| Keywords: | Culture, individualism, migration, selection, economic history |
| JEL: | Z10 F22 O15 R23 N33 |
| Date: | 2019–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1901&r=all |
| By: | Murard, Elie (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the literature on the impact of migration on household members left behind at origin. The empirical problem previous studies address is the self-selection of households into migration, i.e. the endogenous decision as to whether or not send a migrant. Yet, the subsequent selection of which family members migrate and which stay behind generates additional identification problems that have remained largely ignored. To tackle this second form of selectivity within the households, I model the behavior of families using latent stratification and potential outcome (Imbens and Angrist, 1994; Rubin, 1974). I show that the point-identification of the causal impact of migration requires strong behavioral assumptions rarely satisfied even with ideal experimental data. As a practical solution, I derive non parametric bounds under different sets of weaker assumptions. Using Mexican panel data, I show that standard estimates ignoring the intra-household selection into migration may suffer from substantial bias. |
| Keywords: | selectivity, migration, sample selection, bounds, principal stratification |
| JEL: | C21 F22 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12094&r=all |
| By: | Tuccio, Michele; Wahba, Jackline; Hamdouch, Bachir |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the impact of international migration on the transfer of political and social norms. Exploiting recent and unique data on Morocco, it explores whether households with return and current migrants bear different political preferences and behaviours than non-migrant families. Once controlling for the double selection into emigration and return migration, findings suggest that having a returnee in the household increases the demand for political and social change, driven by returnees mostly from Western European countries, who have been exposed to more democratic norms at destination. However, we find a negative impact of having a current migrant on the willingness to change of the left-behind household, driven by migrants to non-West countries, where the quality of political and social institutions is lower. Our results are robust to also controlling for destination selectivity. |
| Keywords: | International migration,Political change,Transfer of norms,Morocco |
| JEL: | D72 F22 O15 O55 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:309&r=all |
| By: | Pierre-Philippe Combes (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris); Sylvie Démurger (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - Université de Lyon - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Shi Li (Beijing Normal University); Jianguo Wang (Beijing Information Science and Technology University) |
| Abstract: | We assess the role of internal migration and urbanisation in China on the nominal earnings of three groups of workers (rural migrants, low-skilled natives, and high-skilled natives). We estimate the impact of many city and city-industry characteristics that shape agglomeration economies, as well as migrant and human capital externalities and substitution effects. We also account for spatial sorting and reverse causality. Location matters for individual earnings, but urban gains are unequally distributed. High-skilled natives enjoy large gains from agglomeration and migrants at the city level. Both conclusions also hold, to a lesser extent, for low-skilled natives, who are only marginally negatively affected by migrants within their industry. By contrast, rural migrants slightly lose from migrants within their industry while otherwise gaining from migration and agglomeration, although less than natives. The different returns from migration and urbanisation are responsible for a large share of wage disparities in China. |
| Keywords: | urban development,agglomeration economies,wage disparities,migrants,human capital externalities,China |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01989668&r=all |
| By: | Mary J. Lopez; Sita Slavov |
| Abstract: | As the share of older immigrants residing in the U.S. begins to rise, it is important to understand how immigrants’ retirement behavior and security compare to that of natives. This question has implications for the impact of immigration on government finances and for the retirement security of immigrants. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine how immigrants’ retirement and Social Security claiming patterns compare to those of natives. We find that immigrants are significantly less likely than natives to retire or claim Social Security in their early 60s. We do not find heterogeneous effects by ethnicity or age of arrival to the U.S. We also find no evidence that immigrants exit the survey at higher rates than U.S. natives in their late 50s through 60s, a finding that is consistent with immigrants retiring in the U.S. rather than abroad. |
| JEL: | D14 H55 J15 J26 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25518&r=all |
| By: | ALIEVA Aigul; HILDEBRAND Vincent; VAN KERM Philippe |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the change in educational achievement differences between native and foreign background students between the ages of 10 and 15, as they progress from primary to secondary education. We examine three cohorts of students in a number of Western European and traditional English-speaking immigration countries using combinations of PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA survey data. While the performance of students with mixed parents is not markedly different from native students?, foreign background children?both first- and second-generation?exhibit a large achievement gap at age 10 in continental Europe, even when accounting for observable differences in socio-economic characteristics. The gap tends to narrow down by age 15 in reading, but no catching up is observed in mathematics. By contrast, we do not find significant differences between the academic achievements of immigrant children and their native-born peers in traditional immigration countries. |
| Keywords: | Achievement gap; foreign-born students; primary education; secondary education; test scores comparability; Europe; Traditional Immigration Countries; TIMSS; PIRLS; PISA |
| JEL: | C14 D63 |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2018-20&r=all |
| By: | Hippolyte D'Albis (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Ekrame Boubtane (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UdA - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Dramane Coulibaly (EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that the macroeconomic and fiscal consequences of international migration are positive for OECD countries, and suggests that international migration produces a demographic dividend by increasing the share of the work- force within the population. The estimation of a structural vector autoregressive model on a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 1980-2015 reveals that a migration shock increases GDP per capita through a positive effect on both the ratio of working-age to total population and the employment rate. International migration also improves the fiscal balance by reducing the per capita transfers paid by the government and per capita old-age public spending. To rationalize these findings, an original theoretical framework is developed. This framework highlights the roles of both the demographic structure and intergenerational public transfers and shows that migration is beneficial to host economies characterized by aging populations and large public sectors. |
| Keywords: | Immigration,public finances,overlapping-generation model,panel VAR |
| Date: | 2018–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01955539&r=all |
| By: | Esposito, Piero; Collignon, Stefan; Schicchitano, Sergio |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we assess the impact of immigration and unemployment for a sample of 15 EU countries between 1997 and 2016. We test for the existence of a core-periphery dualism based on differences in macroeconomic fundamentals and labour market characteristics. We use a Panel Error Correction Model to assess the direction and persistence of the impact of immigration on domestic unemployment in the short and in the long run. In the long run, immigration is found to reduce unemployment in all peripheral-countries. In core countries, we find no long-run impact of immigration on unemployment due to substantial heterogeneity. As for short-run dynamics, we find a confirmation of the result that immigration reduces unemployment for the whole sample. Based on differences in employment protection and activity rates, larger impacts are found for Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon countries, while lower and less significant impacts are found for Italy, Greece and Portugal. |
| Keywords: | International Migration,Unemployment,European Union,Panel Data |
| JEL: | C23 E23 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:310&r=all |
| By: | Vernby, Kåre (Stockholms universitet); Dancygier, Rafaela (Princeton university) |
| Abstract: | How pervasive is labor market discrimination against immigrants and what options do policymakers and migrants have to reduce it? To answer these questions, we conducted a field experiment on employer discrimination in Sweden. Going beyond existing work, we test for a large range of applicant characteristics using a factorial design. We examine whether migrants can affect their employment chances – by adopting citizenship, acquiring work experience, or signaling religious practice – or whether fixed traits such as country of birth or gender are more consequential. We find no evidence that immigrants can affect their employment chances by any of the tested means. Rather, ethnic hierarchies are critical: callback rates decline precipitously with the degree of ethno-cultural distance, leaving Iraqis and Somalis, especially if they are male, with much reduced employment chances. These findings highlight that immigrants have few tools at their disposal to escape ethnic penalties and that efforts to reduce discrimination must address employer prejudice. |
| Keywords: | country of birth; citizenship; gender; work-experience; religion; discrimination; field experiment; labor market |
| JEL: | J23 J71 |
| Date: | 2018–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2018_017&r=all |