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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Filipski, Mateusz J.; Tiburcio, Ernesto; Dorosh, Paul A.; Hoddinott, John F.; Rosenbach, Gracie |
| Abstract: | In the context of the massive influx of Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals to Bangladesh, this paper aims to evaluate the potential consequences on the Southern Bangladesh economy. It adopts an economywide perspective to study the impacts of increased labor supply and increased consumer demand in a general equilibrium framework, using a Local Economy-wide Impact Evaluation (LEWIE) model. The model is used to illustrate the potential effect of a large arrival of displaced populations on wages, the supply and demand of goods, and incomes of migrant and host populations. Simulations enable comparisons between possible scenarios, including two options for the size of the market being impacted (either the smaller Cox’s Bazar District, or the larger Chittagong Division) and several options for aid provisions from international actors. The databases used are the Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN) and Host Community Household Survey carried out by IFPRI, BIDS, WFP and ACF in late 2018 and the official Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016. We find that if the migrants enter the Cox Bazar labor markets only, their large number could potentially lead to a large drop in wage levels of around 30%. However, under similar conditions their impact in the much larger Chittagong Division would be limited to a drop of less than 4%. Cash transfers to migrants could mitigate the wage effects by stimulating local demand, but this effect is limited. Some local households may be hurt due to lower wages and higher prices. Matched transfers to local populations and investments in local industry could potentially offset some of these negative impacts. |
| Keywords: | BANGLADESH, SOUTH ASIA, ASIA, economic development, migration, refugees, labour market, economic analysis, Local Economy Wide Model, forced migration, |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1862&r=all |
| By: | Nowrasteh,Alex; Forrester,Andrew C.; Blondin,Cole |
| Abstract: | To what extent does immigration affect the economic institutions in destination countries? While there is much evidence that economic institutions in developed nations are either unaffected or improved after immigration, there is little evidence of how immigration affects the economic institutions of developing countries that typically have weaker institutions. Using the Synthetic Control Method, this study estimates a significant and long-lasting positive effect on Jordanian economic institutions from the surge of refugees from the First Gulf War. The surge of refugees to Jordan in 1990?1991 was massive and equal to 10 percent of Jordan's population in 1990. Importantly, these refugees were able to have a large and direct impact on Jordanian economic institutions because they could work, live, and vote immediately upon entry due to a quirk in Jordanian law. The refugee surge was the main mechanism by which Jordan's economic institutions improved in the decades that followed. |
| Keywords: | International Migration,Migration and Development,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Armed Conflict,International Trade and Trade Rules,Youth and Governance,National Governance,Social Analysis,Quality of Life&Leisure,Government Policies,Public Sector Administrative and Civil Service Reform,Democratic Government,Public Sector Administrative&Civil Service Reform,State Owned Enterprise Reform,Energy Privatization,De Facto Governments,Privatization,Economics and Finance of Public Institution Development |
| Date: | 2019–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8817&r=all |
| By: | Konstantinos Matakos (King’s College London); Riikka Savolainen (Newcastle University Business School); Janne Tukiainen (University of Turku) |
| Abstract: | We study whether establishing new asylum-seeker centres influences the redistribution related policy positions of candidates in local elections in Finland - a country where municipalities have significant control over fiscal policies. The sudden and unprecedentedly large inflow of the asylum seekers in autumn 2015 and the resulting establishment of asylum centres facilitates a difference-in-differences research design. We focus on the supply side of redistributive politics and find that on average candidates do not respond to the presence of the centres by proposing less (or more) redistribution in a voting aid application survey. Our estimates are precise enough to rule out even fairly small effects both for all the candidates and the elected ones. In contrast, on the demand side, there is evidence of various voter responses on average suggesting that electoral politics may limit to some extent the impact of voter preferences on such policies. However, in the very smallest municipalities where there are many refugees per capita we find that also the candidates become less favourable towards redistribution. In other words, intensity of exposure to refugee migration seems to be behind any observed supply-side response regarding redistribution. |
| Keywords: | candidates, immigration, local elections, redistribution, refugee crisis |
| JEL: | D72 H71 H72 J15 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp132&r=all |
| By: | Endrich, Marek |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the long-term impact of television on hate crimes in Germany. In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) foreign television served as a window to the world and exposed viewers to foreign influences. But certain parts of the GDR were excluded from receiving Western television due to geographical features. I argue that this resulted in long-lasting differences in the attitude towards foreigners. Using the spatial variation in signal strength as a natural experiment, the paper tests the effect of Western broadcasts on the rate of hate crimes. Municipalities with no access to foreign broadcasts exhibit a higher degree of xenophobic violence in the period of the migration crisis in Germany between 2014 to 2017. It shows that media can lead to preference changes that persist for a long time after the exposure. |
| Keywords: | hate crimes,refugees,natural experiment,media |
| JEL: | J15 K42 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ilewps:33&r=all |
| By: | Gonnot, Jérôme |
| Abstract: | This paper examines natives’ decision to grant political rights to foreign residents based on their contribution to a redistribution mechanism that finances a private and a public good. We propose a model where agents’ redistributive preferences are determined by their skill level and their cultural beliefs about public spending, which vary by skill and nationality. Contrary to a commonly held view in the political economy literature, we show that low-skill natives are willing to enfranchise relatively skilled foreigners as long as these foreigners have sufficiently liberal beliefs towards public spending. Moreover, we establish that the political rights that low-skill natives are prepared to grant to foreign residents is a nonmonotonic function of immigration’s skill level and cultural support for public expenditure. In particular, low-skill natives favor greater political integration for less-skilled or more liberal foreigners if and only if these foreigners’ average relative preferences for the private and the public good are sufficiently close to their own. We provide empirical support for some of the theoretical predictions of the model using an original municipality-level dataset of Swiss referenda about non-citizen voting rights. Our results indicate that municipalities where a higher share of natives received social transfers were more likely to support immigrant voting and that this effect was greater where foreigners were poorer and emigrated from less economically conservative countries. |
| JEL: | H41 H53 J68 D72 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:124108&r=all |
| By: | Piton, Céline; Rycx, François |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the employment performance of first- and second-generation immigrants in Belgium compared to that of natives. Using detailed quarterly data for the period 2008-2014, we find not only that first-generation immigrants face a substantial employment penalty (up to -36% points) vis-à-vis their native counterparts, but also that their descendants continue to face serious difficulties in accessing the labour market. The social elevator appears to be broken for descendants of two non-EU-born immigrants. Immigrant women are also found to be particularly affected. Among the key drivers of access to employment, we find: i) education for the descendants of non-EU-born immigrants, and ii) proficiency in the host country language, citizenship acquisition, and (to a lesser extent) duration of residence for first-generation immigrants. Finally, estimates suggest that around a decade is needed for the employment gap between refugees and other foreign-born workers to be (largely) suppressed. |
| Keywords: | First- and second-generation immigrants,employment,moderating factors |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J21 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:485&r=all |
| By: | Mobarak,Mushfiq; Sharif,Iffath Anwar; Shrestha,Maheshwor |
| Abstract: | Many economists believe that the returns to migration are high. However, credible experimental estimates of the benefits of migration are rare, particularly for low-skilled international migrants and their families. This paper studies a natural experiment in Bangladesh, where low-skilled male migrant workers to Malaysia were selected via a large-scale lottery program. This study tracked the households of lottery applicants and surveyed 3,512 lottery winners and losers. Five years after the lottery, 76 percent of the winners had migrated internationally compared with only 19 percent of the lottery losers. Using the lottery outcome as an instrument, the paper finds that the government intermediated migration increased the incomes of migrants by over 200 percent and their household per capita consumption by 22 percent. Furthermore, low-skilled international migration leads to large improvements in a wide array of household socioeconomic outcomes, including female involvement in key household decisions. Such large gains arise, at least in part, due to lower costs of government intermediation. |
| Keywords: | Educational Sciences,Inequality,Labor Markets,Employment and Unemployment |
| Date: | 2020–02–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9165&r=all |
| By: | Pia M. Orrenius; Madeline Zavodny; Alexander T. Abraham |
| Abstract: | Immigration, like any positive labor supply shock, should increase the return to capital and spur business investment. These changes should have a positive impact on business creation and expansion, particularly in areas that receive large immigrant inflows. Despite this clear prediction, there is sparse empirical evidence on the effect of immigration on business dynamics. One reason may be data unavailability since public-access firm-level data are rare. This study examines the impact of immigration on business dynamics and employment by combining U.S. data on immigrant inflows from the Current Population Survey with data on business formation and survival and job creation and destruction from the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database for the period 1997 to 2013. The results indicate that immigration increases the business growth rate by boosting business survival and raises employment by reducing job destruction. The effects are largely driven by less-educated immigrants. |
| Keywords: | immigration; business dynamics; firm entry; firm exit; job creation; job destruction |
| JEL: | J15 J61 L25 |
| Date: | 2020–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:87560&r=all |
| By: | Pia M. Orrenius; Madeline Zavodny; Stephanie Gullo |
| Abstract: | U.S. GDP growth is anticipated to remain sluggish over the next decade, and slow labor force growth is a key underlying reason. Admitting more immigrants is one way U.S. policymakers can bolster growth in the workforce and the economy. A larger role for immigrant workers also can help mitigate other symptoms of the economy’s long-run malaise, such as low productivity growth, declining domestic geographic mobility, and falling entrepreneurship, as well as help address the looming mismatch between the skills U.S. employers want and the skills U.S. workers have. While some might argue that technological change and globalization mean there is less need to admit immigrant workers, such arguments fail to account for both recent data and historical experience. Of course, immigration—like anything else—is not without costs, which are disproportionately borne by the least educated. A plan to increase employment-based immigration as a way to spur economic growth could be paired with new programs to help low-skilled U.S. natives and earlier immigrants so that the benefits of immigration are shared more equitably. |
| Keywords: | U.S. immigration policy; labor market trends |
| JEL: | J61 J15 J18 |
| Date: | 2020–03–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:87591&r=all |
| By: | Dany Bahar |
| Abstract: | The paper reviews recent literature on the economics of migration and diasporas, focusing on economic gains and opportunities that these diasporas could represent for home countries. In addition, the paper discusses policies aimed at leveraging this “diaspora capital". |
| Keywords: | migration, diaspora, trade, FDI, remittances, knowledge |
| JEL: | O33 F14 F22 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8106&r=all |
| By: | González Chapela, Jorge |
| Abstract: | This study uses newly available data from the Survey of Financial Competences to investigate whether cross-region migrants in Spain are more patient than individuals who choose to remain in their birth region. The empirical model incorporates predicted probabilities of underreporting and overreporting of the migrant status. Less patient individuals appear to be less likely to be migrants. This result is robust to controlling for a variety of demographic and economic factors, as well as for cognitive ability. |
| Keywords: | Internal migration, time preference, measurement error, probit, Spain. |
| JEL: | C35 J60 |
| Date: | 2020–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:98711&r=all |
| By: | Hassan F. Gholipour; Mohammad Reza Farzanegan; Mostafa Javadian |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of air pollution (measured by satellite data of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD)) on net outmigration. Using data from the 2011 and 2016 National Population and Housing Censuses for 31 provinces of Iran and applying a panel fixed effects estimation method, our results show that AOD has a positive and significant impact on net outmigration. We also find that higher levels of economic activities in provinces discourage outmigration. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, migration, Iran |
| JEL: | Q53 R23 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8107&r=all |