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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Ivlevs, Artjoms (University of the West of England, Bristol) |
| Abstract: | This study provides novel evidence on the effects of emigration on pro-environmental behaviour back home. Focusing on the seven successor states of former Yugoslavia, I explore the relationship between people's present-day pro-environmental action and the local-level intensity of a major guestworker emigration wave that occurred four decades earlier. I find that more intense local-level emigration is associated with a lower likelihood of pro-environmental action; the instrumental variable analysis supports the causal nature of this relationship. This finding supports the conjecture that emigration contributes to greater consumerism at home and therefore reduces pro-environmental behaviour. At the same time, controlling for the intensity of local-level emigration, a higher proportion of women in the local migrant population is associated with a greater likelihood of pro-environmental action. As women are generally more likely to undertake pro-environmental behaviour as well as transfer new norms and practices across borders, this finding supports the hypothesis that migration contributes to a cross-border transmission of pro-environmental norms and practices. |
| Keywords: | emigration, pro-environmental behaviour, former Yugoslavia, monetary remittances, social remittances, instrumental variable analysis, gender effects |
| JEL: | F22 F24 F64 P28 R11 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12984&r=all |
| By: | Katharina Wolf; Michaela Kreyenfeld |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data from the Migrant Samples of the German Socio-Economic Panel to study the fertility behaviour of women who migrated to Germany between 1990 and 2015. Special emphasis is placed on the large groups of migrants who have moved to Germany from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries since the 1990s. We find that CEE migrants had higher first birth, but much lower second birth rates than migrants from other European countries. Different from the pattern of African and Middle Eastern migrants, we do not find a spike in first birth rates after migration. We also examined differences within the group of migrants from CEE-countries. In particular, we examined whether Ethnic German migrants differed from migrants who moved as third country national or those who moved after their country became EU-members with the right to free movement of labor. We find that CEE-migrants who moved when their country was a member state of the European Union display strongly reduced first birth rates. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1076&r=all |
| By: | Dario Diodato; Ricardo Hausmann; Frank Neffke |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of return migration from the U.S. to Mexico on the economies of Mexican cities. In principle, returnees increase the local labor supply and therefore put pressure on wages and employment rates of locals. However, having worked in the technologically more advanced US economy, they may also possess skills that complement the skills of local workers or even bring in new organizational and technological know-how that leads to productivity improvements in Mexico. Using an instrument based on involuntary return migration due to deportation by US authorities, we find evidence in support of both effects. Returnees affect wages of locals in different ways: whereas workers who share the returnees' occupations experience a fall in wages, workers in other occupations see their wages rise. However, the latter, positive, effect is easily overlooked, because it is highly localized: it only affects coworkers within the same city-industry cell. Moreover, both, positive and negative, wage effects are transitory and eventually disappear. In contrast, by raising the employment levels of the industry in which they find jobs, returnees permanently alter a city's industry composition. |
| Keywords: | return migration, skills, employment, wages, Mexico, United States |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2012&r=all |
| By: | de Brauw, Alan |
| Abstract: | The decision of whether to migrate or not is one of several important decisions made by young men and women throughout the developing world. This paper uses panel data from five countries in Asia and Africa to examine the determinants of rural youth migration across five different countries, indirectly testing both broad and specific hypotheses related to migration. It finds that individual characteristics are more important determinants of migration than household or village characteristics. Further, it finds little evidence that credit constraints or relative deprivation are correlated with migration, holding other things constant. The difference between this result and those found in the literature regarding credit constraints implies credit constraints are geographically concentrated. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for migration influenced policy regarding youth, including the need for more and better migration data. |
| Keywords: | WORLD, ASIA, AFRICA, youth, migration, deprivation, credit, constraints, rural areas, rural youth, relative deprivation, credit constraints, |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1898&r=all |
| By: | Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis); Rutledge, Zachariah (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the United States spanning the period between 1970 and 2017, we analyze the economic assimilation of subsequent arrival cohorts of Mexican and Central American immigrants, the more economically disadvantaged group of immigrants. We compare their wage and employment probability to that of similarly aged and educated natives across various cohorts of entry. We find that all cohorts started with a disadvantage of 40-45 percent relative to the average US native, and eliminated about half of it in the 20 years after entry. They also started with no employment probability disadvantage at arrival and they overtook natives in employment rates so that they were 5-10 percent more likely to be employed 20 years after arrival. We also find that recent cohorts, arriving after 1995, did better than earlier cohorts both in initial gap and convergence. We show that Mexicans and Central Americans working in the construction sector and in urban areas did better in terms of gap and convergence than others. Finally, also for other immigrant groups, such as Chinese and Indians, recent cohorts did better than previous ones. |
| Keywords: | Mexicans and Central Americans, economic assimilation, cohort analysis |
| JEL: | J3 J6 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12976&r=all |
| By: | Brian K. Kovak; Rebecca Lessem |
| Abstract: | We examine how increasing the number of visas available to potential migrants would affect unauthorized immigration from Mexico to the U.S. Current U.S. policy bans people who are deported from receiving legal status for a period of time. This policy aims to serve as an additional deterrent to unauthorized immigration, but may be ineffective given that most potential Mexican migrants have an extremely low probability of ever being able to legally move to the U.S. We develop a dynamic discrete location choice model, which we estimate using data from the Mexican Migration Project, and consider various counterfactual policies that vary the intensity of enforcement and access to work visas. We find that legal entry bans for deported individuals are ineffective at current rates of legal immigration, but that increased legalization rates would amplify the deterrent effects of deportation. We also show that a temporary work visa program would yield similar deterrent effects as an increase in permanent legalization without resulting in very large increases in the total stock of migrants residing in the U.S. These findings have important implications for structuring future immigration reforms. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26790&r=all |
| By: | Sybil Rhodes; Mäeliss Bodenan |
| Abstract: | In the context of restrictive immigration regimes and nationalist-populist politics, the international humanitarian obligation to consider migrants’ claims for political asylum presents states with especially difficult challenges related to “vetting” and “monitoring” migrants. Given that these conditions are unlikely to end any time soon, some authors have suggested solutions to information asymmetries that might lead to effective and more humane outcomes to asylum and refugee crises. This paper evaluates one such proposal, the idea that migrants from “disfavored classes” be admitted in “circles of trust,” groups of five or six people which could be held collectively responsible for the bad behavior of any individual member in the context of refugee and migrant policy in contemporary Argentina. Specifically, the paper compares a plan for Syrian refugees in place since 2015, and the reception of large numbers of Venezuelans since 2014. The paper concludes that “circles of trust” are fraught with perils, but that other non-traditional forms of vetting and monitoring might sometimes be humane and useful in particular situations. |
| Keywords: | Refugees, migrants, vetting, policy, monitoring, Argentina, circles of trust |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:711&r=all |
| By: | Gianluca Orefice (University of Paris-Dauphine, CEPII and CESifo); Giovanni Peri (University of California, Davis and NBER) |
| Abstract: | The process of matching between firms and workers is an important mechanism in determining the distribution of wages. In a labor market characterised by large dispersion of workers' productivity and worker-firm complementarity, high quality firms have strong incentives to screen for the quality of workers. This process will increase the positive quality association of firm-worker matches known as positive assortative matching (PAM). Immigration in a local labor market, by increasing the variance of workers abilities, may drive stronger PAM between firms and workers. Using French matched employer-employee (DADS) data over the period 1995-2005 we document that positive supply-driven changes of immigrant workers in a district increased the strength of PAM. We then show that this association is consistent with causality, is quantitatively significant, and is associated with higher average productivity and firm profits, but also with higher wage dispersion. We also show that the increased degree of positive assortative matching is mainly reached by high-productive firms "losing" lower quality workers and "attracting" higher quality workers. |
| Keywords: | Matching, Workers, Firms, Immigration, Productivity. |
| JEL: | F16 J20 J61 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt202002&r=all |
| By: | Jacob Nielsen Arendt; Iben Bolvig; Mette Foged; Linea Hasager; Giovanni Peri |
| Abstract: | Social and economic integration of refugees are key to their personal fulfillment and to producing positive effects in the host country. We evaluate the impact of a reform that expanded and improved early language classes to refugees in Denmark while also temporarily lowering welfare benefits for a subgroup of them. The policy change applied to those who obtained refugee status in Denmark on or after January 1, 1999. Using a regression discontinuity design around the cutoff date we find that employment and earnings gradually diverged for the treated group after completion of the language program. The effect was significant and resulted in four percentage points permanently higher employment and almost USD 2,510 in extra yearly earnings over eighteen years. We do not find temporary or permanent labor market effects of cutting welfare benefits, but we find evidence of temporarily higher property crime when refugees received lower benefits. We also find that children of refugees who received enhanced language classes were more likely to complete lower secondary school and less likely to commit crime. |
| JEL: | E64 I30 J18 J24 J60 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26834&r=all |
| By: | Mundra, Kusum (Rutgers University); Rios-Avila, Fernando (Levy Economics Institute) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the education and occupation mismatch for Hispanics in the US using a novel objective continuous mismatch index and explore the role of immigrants' social networks on this mismatch. We explore whether having a larger social network helps Hispanics in finding jobs that better match with their skill and education levels or whether living in areas with larger concentration of Hispanics leads to more competition for the same jobs in the labor market. Given that the legal status of immigrants influence how the social networks are leveraged and their impact on labor market outcomes, we focus on the citizenship status for Hispanics. The quality of match between Hispanic's college degree major and occupation is measured using one of the continuous indices proposed in Rios-Avila and Saavedra-Caballero (2019) and calculated using pooled data for all college graduates in the US from 2010 to 2017. The Hispanic networks measures are constructed as the share of Hispanic population who are 25 years or older with respect to the total population of the same age and the second measure only includes Hispanics with at least a bachelor's degree using the weighted pooled data from 2010 to 2015. We find that networks have a positive impact on the job-match quality, but mostly for Hispanic citizens and this effect is stronger when the networks constitutes of at least a college degree. This shows that Hispanic citizens living in higher concentration of Hispanic college graduates are better able to leverage their networks or their networks are better able to match them with jobs closer to their field of specialization and skill set. |
| Keywords: | education-occupation mismatch, horizontal mismatch, social networks, hispanics, citizenship |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12975&r=all |
| By: | Isaac Ehrlich; Yun Pei |
| Abstract: | Unlike physical capital, human capital has both embodied and disembodied dimensions. It can be perceived of as skill and acquired knowledge, but also as knowledge spillover effects between overlapping generations and across different skill groups within and across countries. We illustrate the roles these characteristics play in the process of economic development; the relation between income growth and income and fertility distributions; and the relevance of human capital in determining the skill distribution of immigrants in a balanced-growth global equilibrium setting. In all three illustrations, knowledge spillover effects play a key role. The analysis offers new insights for understanding the decline in fertility below population replacement rate in many developed countries; the evolution of income and fertility distributions across developing and developed countries; and the often asymmetric effects that endogenous immigration flows and their skill composition exert on the long-term net benefits from immigration to natives in source and destination countries. |
| JEL: | F22 F43 J11 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26810&r=all |