nep-mig New Economics Papers
on Economics of Human Migration
Issue of 2021‒07‒26
sixteen papers chosen by
Yuji Tamura
La Trobe University

  1. From Court to Classroom: Deportation Proceedings and Reading and Math Achievement for Elementary Students from 1998 to 2016 By Kirksey, J. Jacob
  2. Training Teachers for Diversity Awareness: Impact on School Attendance of Refugee Children By Tumen, Semih; Vlassopoulos, Michael; Wahba, Jackline
  3. Human capital transfer of German-speaking migrants in Eastern Europe, 1780s-1820s By Blum, Matthias; Krauss, Karl-Peter; Myeshkov, Dmytro
  4. Age at Arrival and Residential Integration By Cristina Bratu; Matz Dahlberg; Madhinee Valeyatheepillay
  5. Migration and Labor Market Integration in Europe By Dorn, David; Zweimüller, Josef
  6. On the right track? The role of work experience in migrant mothers' current employment probability By Boll, Christina; Lagemann, Andreas
  7. Exports “brother-boost†: the trade-creation and skill-upgrading effect of Venezuelan forced migration on Colombian manufacturing firms By Carlo Lombardo; Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco
  8. Does Educational Mismatch Affect Emigration Behaviour? By Wanner, Philippe; Pecoraro, Marco; Tani, Massimiliano
  9. Economics of Minority Groups: Labour Market Returns and Transmission of Indigenous Languages By de la Fuente Stevens, Diego; Pelkonen, Panu
  10. Genetic Diversity and Performance: Evidence from Fooball Data By Michel Beine; Silvia Peracchi; Skerdilajda Zanaj
  11. Racism and trust in Europe By Bonick, Matthew
  12. Employer sanctions: A policy with a pitfall? By Stark, Oded; Jakubek, Marcin
  13. Emigration and Fiscal Austerity in a Depression By Guilherme Bandeira; Jordi Caballe; Eugenia Vella
  14. How Do Immigrants Promote Exports? By Gianluca Orefice; Hillel Rapoport; Gianluca Santoni
  15. Asylum Migration, Borders and Terrorism in a Structural Gravity Model By Federico Carril-Caccia; Jordi Paniagua; Rafael Francisco Requena
  16. Chinese population shares in Tibet revisited By Fischer, A.M.

  1. By: Kirksey, J. Jacob (University of California, Santa Barbara)
    Abstract: With rising numbers of deportations over the last two decades, there has been a particular concern among educators and researchers that immigrant-origin students and their peers are experiencing educational consequences due to increased stress, anxiety, and fear of the unknown. This study examined the relationship between immigration enforcement and student achievement in counties across the U.S. This study used data from two nationally representative samples of kindergarteners, The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Classes of 1998-99 and 2010, and the number of deportations ordered from each immigration court provided by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. When combining the ten years of data, the overall analytic sample is n=114,990 child by year observations, with deportations varying in 79 counties from 1998-2016. Employing a cross-sectional, longitudinal design, a student, school, and year fixed effects model was employed to examine the association between deportations and achievement in elementary grades, exploiting variation of deportations between counties and across years. The results of the analyses indicated that increases in deportations coincided with declines in Latinx student achievement in math. Differences emerged based on student-level characteristics and across presidential administrations. Policy implications are discussed.
    Date: 2021–07–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:edarxi:s8byw&r=
  2. By: Tumen, Semih (Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey); Vlassopoulos, Michael (University of Southampton); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton)
    Abstract: Despite efforts to integrate refugee children into host country education systems, their low school attachment remains a major policy challenge. Teachers play a key role in keeping students attached to school, yet classroom diversity poses difficulties for teachers who are not always adequately prepared to address the needs of minority students. Using administrative data and a regression discontinuity approach, we evaluate whether a teacher training program—designed to raise awareness of primary and secondary school teachers in Turkey—is effective in reducing absenteeism of refugee students. We find that the program almost halves the absenteeism gap between native and refugee students and its effect persists into the next academic year, albeit fading out in size. We argue that the most likely channel through which the effects of the program operate is a school-wide mentorship role acquired by trained teachers, which has broad impact on raising diversity awareness within schools.
    Keywords: teacher training, refugees, absenteeism, diversity
    JEL: I21 I28 J15
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14557&r=
  3. By: Blum, Matthias; Krauss, Karl-Peter; Myeshkov, Dmytro
    Abstract: Prior to the Age of Mass Migration, Germans left central Europe to settle primarily in modernday Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Despite the harsh conditions that the first generation of settlers had to endure, their descendants often fared better, not worse, compared to native population groups. This study offers a possible explanation for this surprising outcome. We use data on approximately 11,500 individuals to estimate and compare basic numeracy scores of German settlers and other populations groups in target regions. We find that German settlers generally had superior basic numeracy levels, suggesting that these settlers must have contributed positively to the human capital endowment in their target regions. The numeracy of Germans was somewhat higher than the numeracy of Hungarians and substantially higher than the numeracy of Russians, Ukrainians and Serbs. We do not find noteworthy differences in terms of numeracy between German emigrants and the population they left behind, suggesting the absence of substantial migrant selection.
    Keywords: Migration,Economic History,Germany,Hungary,Russian Empire,Ukraine,Eastern Europe
    JEL: N13 N23
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202103&r=
  4. By: Cristina Bratu; Matz Dahlberg; Madhinee Valeyatheepillay
    Abstract: We study residential integration patterns in adulthood for children of refugees who arrive in Sweden before the age of 16. Using geo-coded information on the residential location of each individual in Sweden, we take a novel, data-driven approach in defining neighborhoods and construct individualized k-nearest neighborhoods, for k = 100 or k = 1000. Exploiting a siblings design, we find that, at age 30, refugee children arriving later live in neighborhoods with lower shares of natives, high-educated individuals, and high-income earners, and higher share of welfare receivers, regardless of the level of k. We also provide evidence that refugee children arriving later experience worse labor market outcomes in terms of earnings, lower educational outcomes and likelihood to marry Swedish-born partners at age 30 as compared to children arriving earlier to the host country. Using a decomposition analysis, we show that the mean effects of age at arrival on neighborhood integration are only partly explained by economic integration, educational integration and intermarriage. Our findings indicate that a large part of the estimated mean age at arrival effects remains unaccounted for, particularly for k = 100, which suggests a role for Swedish housing policies, housing discrimination and taste-based preferences in fully explaining the effects of age at arrival.
    Keywords: refugees, residential integration, age at arrival
    JEL: R23 J15 J12 J01
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9181&r=
  5. By: Dorn, David (University of Zurich); Zweimüller, Josef (University of Zurich)
    Abstract: The European labor market allows for the border-free mobility of workers across 31 countries that cover most of the continent's population. However, rates of migration across European countries remain considerably lower than interstate migration in the United States, and spatial variation in terms of unemployment or income levels is larger. We document patterns of migration in Europe, which include a sizable migration from east to west in the last twenty years. An analysis of worker-level microdata provides some evidence for an international convergence in wage rates, and for modest static gains from migration. We conclude by discussing obstacles to migration that reduce the potential for further labor market integration in Europe.
    Keywords: labor migration, wages, Europe, European Union single market
    JEL: F22 F53 J31 J61
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14538&r=
  6. By: Boll, Christina; Lagemann, Andreas
    Abstract: This paper investigates the role of work experience in migrant mothers' current employment in Germany. Unlike previous papers, we focus on actual experience and add the motherhood aspect. To this end, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 2013-2018 including the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample. Having immigrated to Germany and female sex are the two treatments of our sample of 491 migrant mothers, with 7,077 native mothers and 1,383 migrant fathers serving as control groups. Running LPM with individual FE and testing the robustness of the work experience estimators against a range of covariates and unobserved time-varying confounders with Oster bounds, we show that years of domestic part-time experience yield higher returns for migrant mothers compared to migrant fathers and non-migrant mothers. We conclude that current employment is significantly fueled by former employment; thus policies should be designed such that they help women to 'get on the right track'.
    Keywords: migrant employment,maternal employment,LPM with individual FE,Oster test,actual work experience
    JEL: J61 J16 J24
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hwwirp:196&r=
  7. By: Carlo Lombardo (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP); Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP and Cornell University)
    Abstract: This paper studies the impact of a massive skilled labor supply shock on Colombian manufacturing firms’ exports, the Venezuelan exodus. We exploit crosssectional and time variability of Venezuelan forced migrants’ settlements in Colombian sub-national areas through an enclave instrumental variables approach to account for the selection of immigrants’ location. Using yearly customs data from 2013 to 2019, we find that the Venezuelan migration improved Colombian manufacturing firms’ export performance, particularly to high-income countries of the OECD located in North America and low-income countries. This effect was stronger for firms that exported less prior to the exodus (2012). Furthermore, using a detailed yearly panel of manufacturing firms from 2013 to 2019 we identify the potential labor market driving mechanism of the trade-creation effect: immigrants lowered exporting firms’ blue-collar wages, and allowed them to upgrade their labor force skill composition, namely firms were able to hire workers more compatible with exports to developed destinations.
    JEL: F22 F16 F14 J61 J31
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0283&r=
  8. By: Wanner, Philippe (University of Geneva); Pecoraro, Marco (University of Neuchatel); Tani, Massimiliano (University of New South Wales)
    Abstract: This paper uses linked Swiss administrative and survey data to examine the relationship between educational mismatch in the labour market and emigration decisions, carrying out the analysis for both Swiss native and previous immigrant workers. In turn, migrants' decisions separate returning home from onward migration to a third country. We find that undereducation is positively associated with the probability of emigration and return to the country of origin. In contrast, the reverse relationship is found between overeducation and emigration, especially among non-European immigrant workers. According to the predictions of the traditional model of migration, based on self-selection, migrants returning home are positively selected relative to migrants emigrating to other countries. We also find that immigrants from a country outside the EU27/EFTA have little incentive to return home and generally accept jobs for which they are mismatched in Switzerland. These results highlight the relevance to understand emigration behaviours in relation to the type of migrant that is most integrated, and productive, in the Swiss market, hence enabling better migration and domestic labour market policy design.
    Keywords: emigration, return migration, onward migration, wages, occupation, educational mismatch
    JEL: J15 J24 J61 O15
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14558&r=
  9. By: de la Fuente Stevens, Diego (University of Sussex); Pelkonen, Panu (University of Sussex)
    Abstract: This study demonstrates a series of links between minority language skills, their economic return and their transmission across generations. Using a detailed matching procedure and different data sources, we estimate the likelihood of being employed for bilingual versus monolingual men for a large number of Mexican indigenous groups. We find that for indigenous groups, retaining the minority language along with Spanish increases employment opportunities. Furthermore, we show that the languages that are associated with larger labour market benefits are more likely to be passed on from parents to children, controlling for other factors. Overall, this study shows that the continuity of minority languages across generations is linked to concrete economic benefits, labour market specialisation, and insurance value, along with the usual social factors within the family and the community.
    Keywords: intergenerational transmission, language skills, bilingualism, return to skills, minority languages, indigenous group
    JEL: J4 J15 J31 O54 Z1 Z13
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14539&r=
  10. By: Michel Beine; Silvia Peracchi; Skerdilajda Zanaj
    Abstract: The theoretical impact of genetic diversity is ambiguous since it leads to costs and benefits at the collective level. In this paper, we assess empirically the connection between genetic diversity and the performance of sport teams. Focusing on football (soccer), we built a novel dataset of national teams of European countries that have participated in the European and the World Championships since 1970. Determining the genetic diversity of national teams is based on the distance between the genetic scores of every players’ origins in the team. Genetic endowments for each player are recovered using a matching algorithm based on family names. Performance is measured at both the unilateral and bilateral level. Identification of the causal link relies on an instrumental variable strategy that is based on past immigration at the country level about one generation before. Our findings indicate a positive causal link between genetic diversity and teams’ performance. We find a substantial effect, a one-standard increase in diversity leading to ranking changes of two to three positions after each stage of a championship.
    Keywords: genetic diversity, football, sports team, performance, family names, migration
    JEL: F22 F66 O15 O47 Z22
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9188&r=
  11. By: Bonick, Matthew
    Abstract: I study the impact of racism on trust in Europe. To operationalize trust and racism, I use individual level responses from the European Social and World Value Surveys. The results of the multivariate analysis indicate, individuals who possess a self-reported racist attitude are less likely to be trusting. To address the issue of causality, I examine second generation immigrants. When analyzing immigrants and using the level of racism of their origin country as a proxy for individual racial attitudes, I find, racism continues to predict lower levels of trust. These results provide evidence racism has a negative, significant, and causal impact on generalized trust. Additionally, the paper supports the notion that racism could have negative economic consequences via the erosion of social capital.
    Keywords: Racism,Trust,Culture
    JEL: O1 Z1
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cenwps:022021&r=
  12. By: Stark, Oded; Jakubek, Marcin
    Abstract: This chapter investigates the impact of the imposition of sanctions for employing illegal migrants on the welfare of native laborers. In response to such sanctions, managers in a firm may be reassigned from the supervision of production to the verification of the legality of the firm's labor force. The chapter analyzes three different conditions of the host country's labor market: full employment, voluntary unemployment, and minimal wage in combination with involuntary unemployment. It is shown that when the sanctions are steep enough, a profit-maximizing firm will assign managers to verification, which impedes the firm's productivity. The impact on the wages and / or employment of the native laborers depends on the efficiency of the verification technology, namely on the percentage of the 'filtered out' illegal laborers in relation to the fraction of reassigned managers. If this efficiency is not high enough, the sanctions bring in their wake consequences that fly in the face of the very aim of their introduction: the welfare of the native laborers will take a beating.
    Keywords: Employer sanctions,Illegal migrant laborers,Welfare of native laborers
    JEL: D21 I38 J21 J61 K31 L51
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuewef:149&r=
  13. By: Guilherme Bandeira (New South Wales Treasury); Jordi Caballe (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Barcelona GSE); Eugenia Vella
    Abstract: This paper studies the role of emigration in a deep recession when the government implements fiscal consolidation. We build a small open economy New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions, emigration of the labour force, and fiscal details. Our simulations for the austerity mix during the Greek Depression show that fiscal austerity accounts for one third of the output drop and more than 10% of migration outflows, whereas the rest is attributed to the macroeconomic environment. A counterfactual without migration underestimates the fall in output by one fifth. The model also sheds light on the two-way relation between emigration and austerity. Labour income tax hikes induce prolonged migration outflows, while spending cuts exert only a small effect on emigration which can be positive or negative depending on opposite demand and wealth effects. On the flip side, emigration increases the required tax hike and time to meet a given debt target due to endogenous revenue leakage. For tax hikes, emigration acts as an absorber of the austerity shock by diluting the output costs per resident through shrinking population. Yet, in terms of unemployment, temporary gains are reversed over time due to the distortionary effects of taxes on employment.
    Keywords: fiscal consolidation, emigration of employed, on the job search, matching frictions, Greek crisis.
    JEL: E32 F41
    Date: 2020–06–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:2035&r=
  14. By: Gianluca Orefice; Hillel Rapoport; Gianluca Santoni
    Abstract: How does immigration affect export performance? To answer this question, we propose a unified empirical framework allowing to disentangle various mechanisms put forth in previous literature. These include the role of networks in reducing bilateral transaction costs as well as productivity shifts arising from migration-induced knowledge diffusion and increased workforce diversity. While we find evidence supporting all three channels (at both the intensive and the extensive margins of trade), our framework allows to gauge their relative importance. We then focus on diversity and find stronger results in sectors characterized by more complex production processes and more intense teamwork cooperation. This is consistent with theories linking the distribution of skills to the comparative advantage of nations. The results are robust to using a theoretically grounded IV approach combining three variations on the shift share methodology.
    Keywords: International Trade;Birthplace Diversity;Migration;Productivity
    JEL: F14 F16 F22 O47
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2021-06&r=
  15. By: Federico Carril-Caccia (Department of Spanish and International Economics, University of Granada, Granada (Spain).); Jordi Paniagua (Dep. Applied Economics II, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).); Rafael Francisco Requena (Dep. Applied Economics II, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).)
    Abstract: In this paper we examine the impact of terrorism attacks on asylum-related migration flows. So far, the literature that examines the “push factors” such as terrorism explaining forced migration has omitted the fact that the vast majority of people forced to flee, tend to do it somewhere else within the country. The novel feature of our research is the estimation of a structural gravity equation that includes both international migration and internally displaced persons, a theoretically-consistent framework that allows us to identify country-specific variables like terror attacks. For that purpose, we use the information on the number of asylum applications, the number of internally displaced persons, and the number of terrorist attacks in each country for a sample of 119 origin developing countries and 141 destination countries over 2009-2018. The empirical results reveal several interesting and policy-relevant traits. Firstly, the number of forced migration abroad is still minimal compared to internally displaced persons, but globalization forces are pushing up the ratio. Secondly, terror violence has a positive and significant effect on asylum migration flows relative to the number of internally displaced persons. Thirdly, omitting internally displaced people biases downward the effect of terrorism on asylum applications. Fourthly, we observe regional heterogeneity in the effect of terrorism on asylum migration flows; in Latin America, terrorist attacks have a much larger impact on the number of asylum applications relative to internally displaced persons than in Asia or Africa.
    Keywords: Asylum migration; forced migration; internally displaced persons; structural gravity; terrorism
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eec:wpaper:2108&r=
  16. By: Fischer, A.M.
    Abstract: The early results of the 2020 Census of the People’s Republic of China shed light on the highly politicised issue of Han Chinese population shares in the Tibetan areas of western China. Two opposite patterns are evident. The Han share increased in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in the 2010s and the increase accelerated in comparison to the 2000s, but from a small base, reaching 12 percent in 2020. It also appears to be mostly concentrated in the capital city of Lhasa and to a lesser extent in a few other strategic locations in the province. In contrast, the Han share fell in the other half of Tibetan areas. The fall also accelerated in Qinghai and Gansu. If trends continue, minorities will become the majority of Qinghai within a few years. These insights confirm earlier analyses that the dominant structural trend facing these relatively poor peripheral areas is net outmigration, not net in-migration. Because outmigration is stronger among the Han than among minorities, combined with higher fertility and natural population increase rates among minorities (Tibetans in particular), there is a tendency for rising minority shares. This tendency is only counteracted by extremely high levels of subsidisation, such as in the TAR. These population dynamics need to be carefully differentiated, both inside Tibet but also from other regions in China such as Xinjiang. The development implications also run counter to the logic underlying recent allegations of forced or coerced labour in Tibet.
    Keywords: Tibet, China, population, migration, census, ethnic shares, minorities, Tibetans, Han Chinese
    Date: 2021–07–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:135639&r=

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