nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2019‒07‒22
eleven papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
La Trobe University

  1. Cultural Factors and Study Destinations of International Students By Hao Wei; Ran Yuan; Laixun Zhao
  2. The role of distance and social networks in the geography of crowdfunding: evidence from France By Sylvain Dejean
  3. Migration and Informal Insurance By Costas Meghir; Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak; Ahmed Corina Mommaerts; Ahmed Melanie Morten
  4. Cities as drivers of social mobility By Alessandra, Michelangeli; Umut, Türk
  5. The Impact of Medicaid on Medical Utilization in a Vulnerable Population: Evidence from COFA Migrants By Timothy J. Halliday; Randall Q. Akee; Tetine Sentell; Megan Inada; Jill Miyamura
  6. Wasted windfalls: Inefficiencies in health care spending in oil rich countries By Olive Nsababera
  7. Emigration from the UK 1870-1913: Quantity and Quality By Timothy J. Hatton
  8. Mexican Migration to the United States: Selection, Assignment, and Welfare By BURZYNSKI Michal; GOLA Pawel
  9. Weather shocks,poverty and crime in 18th-century Savoy By Chambru, Cédric
  10. Language proficiency and immigrants’ labor market outcomes in post-crisis Spain By Davia, María A.; Wang, Ting; Gámez, Matías
  11. A Chance for Change? Social Attitudes Towards Immigration and the Educational Opportunity of Immigrants' Children By Sophie Augustin; Daniela Rroshi; Alyssa Schneebaum

  1. By: Hao Wei (Department of International Economics, Beijing Normal University, China); Ran Yuan (Department of International Economics, Beijing Normal University, China); Laixun Zhao (Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, Japan)
    Abstract: We examine the role of cultural factors in attracting international students, using data of 102 countries from 2000 to 2015. Our results show that the export of cultural products is conducive to the increase of international students, and in particular, international students choose to study in developing countries whose official language and religious beliefs are different from their home countries, while they tend to go to developed countries with a common language. We also examine the features of international students in China and Chinese students in other countries. The policy implication from our study is that "soft power" such as a unique culture, common value and migration networks is important in attracting foreign students.
    Keywords: Cultural Factors, International Students, Cultural Goods Exports, Migration Networks, Chinese Students Abroad
    JEL: F16 I23
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2019-15&r=all
  2. By: Sylvain Dejean (CE.RE.GE - CEntre de REcherche en GEstion - ULR - Université de La Rochelle - IAE Poitiers - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Poitiers - Université de Poitiers - Université de Poitiers)
    Abstract: This article aims to estimate the cost of distance in the geographical flow of crowdfunding, and to show how social ties between the 94 French metropolitan regions shape the geography of funding. Our analysis draws upon a unique database provided by the French leader in rewards-based crowdfunding. The main result is that the elasticity of distance remains important (around 0.5), and that social ties between regions determine the flow of funding. Doubling the number of immigrants in a region increases the number of investments by 24% and reduces the impact of distance.
    Keywords: Crowdfunding,economic geography,social networks,gravity
    Date: 2019–06–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01645147&r=all
  3. By: Costas Meghir (Cowles Foundation, Yale University, NBER, IZA, CEPR, and Institute for Fiscal Studies); Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); Ahmed Corina Mommaerts (University of Wisconsin – Madison); Ahmed Melanie Morten (Stanford University and NBER)
    Abstract: Do new migration opportunities for rural households change the nature and extent of informal risk sharing? We experimentally document that randomly offering poor rural households subsidies to migrate leads to a 40% improvement in risk sharing in their villages. We explain this finding using a model of endogenous migration and risk sharing. When migration is risky, the network can facilitate migration by insuring that risk, which in turn crowds-in risk sharing when new migration opportunities arise. We estimate the model and ?nd that welfare gains from migration subsidies are 42% larger, compared with the welfare gains without spillovers, once we account for the changes in risk sharing. Our analysis illustrates that (a) ignoring the spillover effects on the network gives an incomplete picture of the welfare effects of migration, and (b) informal risk sharing may be an essential determinant of the takeup of new income-generating technologies.
    Keywords: Informal Insurance, Migration, Bangladesh, RCT
    JEL: D12 D91 D52 O12 R23
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2185&r=all
  4. By: Alessandra, Michelangeli; Umut, Türk
    Abstract: Intergenerational mobility refers to children moving up from the social class position held by their parents. Previous studies indicate family background as one of the major determinants of socioeconomic mobility and, in general, of individual life chances. This paper extends the standard approach to measure intergenerational social mobility by examining the role of cities where offspring grew up. The idea is that cities can provide resources and opportunities able to increase the chance of employment and status attainment. We assess intergenerational mobility in Italy, the most immobile country in Europe together with Greece and Portugal. We use a data survey provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), which provides information on the individual-level track of Italian students’ life path from high school to occupation. We merge these data with city-level data on economic conditions, human capital, and social capital. We distinguish between students who attended university in the same province where they presumably grew up and those who migrated to another province for higher education. This allows us to test whether migration affects the shift in occupation type and, if so, which characteristics of cities enhance upward mobility.
    Keywords: Intergenerational social mobility; spatial mobility; cities.
    JEL: J62 R11 R12
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:397&r=all
  5. By: Timothy J. Halliday; Randall Q. Akee; Tetine Sentell; Megan Inada; Jill Miyamura
    Abstract: In March 2015, the State of Hawaii stopped covering the vast majority of migrants from countries belonging to the Compact of Free Association (COFA) in the state Medicaid program. COFA migrants were instead required to obtain private insurance in the exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act. Using statewide administrative hospital discharge data, we show that Medicaid-funded hospitalizations and emergency room visits declined in this population by 69% and 42% after the expiration of Medicaid eligibility. This decrease occurred despite the fact that low-income COFA households were eligible for state-funded premium coverage for private insurance. Utilization funded by private insurance did increase, but not enough to offset the declines in Medicaid-funded utilization. Uninsured ER visits increased as a consequence of the expiration of Medicaid benefits. Paradoxically, we also find a substantial increase in Medicaid-funded ER visits by infants after the expiration of benefits.
    JEL: I10 I14 J61
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26030&r=all
  6. By: Olive Nsababera (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)
    Abstract: This paper examines the long-term impact of refugee camps on the health of local residents in Tanzania. Taking height-for-age z-score (HAZ) as a proxy for health, the paper exploits the fact that different birth cohorts were exposed to different stages of the camps’ lifecycle. Temporal variation through birth cohorts is combined with geographic variation in a difference-in-difference estimation approach. First, the paper examines the generation that were children at the opening of the camps and are now adults (as of 2012). It finds a negative and localised health effect that has persisted into adulthood. The result is comparable to a 2.9% to 5.9% reduction in adult hourly earnings. However, those that were exposed for a longer duration were less affected suggesting that subsequent economic development around camps mitigated the initial adverse effect. Second, this paper compares the subsequent generation that was born once the camps were already in operation, and those born after camps closed. It finds no observable difference in the HAZ score between those born during camps operation and in the post-camp period.
    Keywords: refugees, child health, Tanzania
    JEL: I15 O10 O15 J13
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:0919&r=all
  7. By: Timothy J. Hatton
    Abstract: In this paper I revisit the determinants of emigration from the UK during the age of mass migration from 1870 to 1913. During those years the cumulative gross outflow was 10 million while the net outflow of nearly 6 million amounted to 13 percent of the UK population in 1913. I focus on the determinants of emigration to the three principal destinations, the USA, Canada and Australia and New Zealand combined. In the absence of restrictive immigration policies, the flow of emigration to these destinations responded to economic shocks and trends. I also investigate differences in the skill content of emigration, as represented by the occupational composition of adult male emigrants to these three destinations. Emigrants to Australia and New Zealand were more skilled on average than those heading across the Atlantic, a feature that does not correspond well with skill differentials in the manner predicted by the Roy model. While assisted passages (subsidised fares) increased the volume of emigration to Australia and New Zealand they cannot account for its higher skill content.
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:079&r=all
  8. By: BURZYNSKI Michal; GOLA Pawel
    Abstract: This paper quanti fies the effects of Mexican migration to the United States on individual welfare along the continuous distribution of skills in both countries. We develop a model that focuses on the sorting of workers within and across national labor markets. Mexican workers self-select into migration, and then, within each country, all workers match with productivity-differentiated fi rms. Firms operate in monopolistically competitive international markets, which they can freely enter or exit. These features of the model ensure that workers with similar skills are substitutes and dissimilar workers are complements. Thus, migration redistributes welfare in the source and host country. In particular, the observed Mexican immigration to the United States depresses the wages of below-median local workers. However, the welfare losses in the United States are modest in scope: A $1.70 per day lump-sum tax on Mexican immigrants is sufficient to fi nance a compensating transfer for all U.S. citizens.
    Keywords: Migration; matching; selection; welfare
    JEL: C68 C78 F22 J24
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2019-10&r=all
  9. By: Chambru, Cédric
    Abstract: Did weather shocks increase interpersonal conflict in early modern Europe? I address this question by exploiting year-to-year seasonal variations in temperature and detailed crime data I assembled from Savoyard criminal procedures over the period 1749–89. I find that temperature shocks had a positive and significant effect on the level of property crimes, but no significant effect on violent crimes. I further document how seasonal migration may help to increase the coping capacity of local communities in which they were widely used. Migrant labourers brought remittances to supplement communities’ resources and also temporarily relieve their communities of the burden of feeding them. I show that temperature shocks were strongly associated with increase in the property crimes rate, but the effect is much lower in provinces with high levels of seasonal migration. I provide historical evidence to show that the inflow of remittances may drive this relationship.
    Keywords: Weather shocks, Migration, Crime, Grain prices, Savoy, 18th Century
    JEL: J61 N33 N53 Q10
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gnv:wpaper:unige:120722&r=all
  10. By: Davia, María A.; Wang, Ting; Gámez, Matías
    Abstract: This paper analyses the impact of Spanish proficiency on first generation immigrants’ labor market outcomes, based on the Labor Force Survey 2014 ad hoc module on the “Labor market situation of migrants and their immediate descendants”. A very high level of proficiency in Spanish is found to enhance immigrants’ employability, particularly for non Spanish-speaking immigrants. The impact increases when potential endogeneity in language skills is addressed via IV variables. Still, proficiency in Spanish does not help to get higher ranked occupations, measured via ISEI (International Socio-Economic Index) – and language skills neither contribute to explain occupational status, nor are endogenous to it, even after control for sample selection. The first result confirms the downward bias of the impact of the language proficiency on employment probabilities when the endogeneity problem is not accounted while the second responds to the particular occupational segregation in Spain amongst workers from different areas of the world.
    Keywords: Spanish Proficiency, immigrants, labor market outcomes, IV regressions
    JEL: J15 J16 J24
    Date: 2019–07–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:94795&r=all
  11. By: Sophie Augustin (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Daniela Rroshi (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Alyssa Schneebaum (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business)
    Abstract: This paper proposes a method to study the relationship between voters' attitudes towards immigration and the educational attainment of immigrants and their children, and applies it to Austrian data. We measure attitudes towards immigration using data on political parties' positions regarding immigration and the share of votes that each party received at the regional level. We then study the educational attainment and intergenerational educational mobility of immigrants who grew up in the regions whose political environment we observe. Preliminary results for Aus- tria suggest that, surprisingly, better attitudes towards migration are associated with lower educational attainment for immigrants. However, immigrants are more likely than their native peers to obtain more education than their parents. Here, the returns to more positive attitudes towards immigration play a large role in explaining the mobility gap across migration background.
    Keywords: educational attainment, immigration, voting behaviour, social attitudes
    JEL: I24 J15 I21 D72
    Date: 2019–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp287&r=all

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