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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Assaf Razin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how Brexit reshaped the volume and composition of UK migration flows. To address the inherent endogeneity of migration responses to political change, the study employs a Difference-in-Differences design that benchmarks the United Kingdom against Germany, a stable EU member unaffected by Brexit-related institutional shocks. Treating the 2016 referendum and the 2021 end of free movement as sequential shocks, the results show that migration volume increased after both shocks, but through different channels: the referendum reduced emigration relative to Germany, while the post-2021 points-based system triggered a reallocation of inflows away from EU free-movement migrants toward non-EU migrants from the rest of the world, with a markedly stronger skill-selective profile. The paper analyzes how Brexit reshaped migration flows into and out of the United Kingdom by exploiting the 2016 referendum and the 2021 termination of free movement as sequential institutional shocks. Using a Difference-in-Differences design with Germany as a stable EU benchmark, the results show that Brexit acted as a structural regime shock, not a border-tightening event. Net migration into the UK rose after both shocks—first due to a sharp post-referendum decline in emigration relative to Germany, and later due to a substantial expansion of non-EU immigration under the new points-based system. Immigration patterns exhibit a clear regime shift, with EU inflows contracting sharply after 2016 and globally sourced, skill-selective inflows rising after 2021. In the later period, a modest but notable increase in UK-born emigration relative to Germany also emerges, reflecting frictions in post-Brexit mobility. Overall, Brexit reoriented—rather than reduced—UK migration flows, transforming both their scale and composition. |
| JEL: | F3 F65 P0 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34665 |
| By: | Aimee Chin; Kalena Cortes; Camila Morales |
| Abstract: | U.S. laws make it illegal for employers to knowingly hire undocumented migrants. This legal constraint affects which firms will employ unauthorized workers and what jobs undocumented migrants can expect to get. As a result, unauthorized migrants are more likely to end up in jobs that have a lower risk of detection of immigration status and are less desirable. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which began in August 2012, gave temporary legal authorization to work in the U.S. to a subset of undocumented migrants – those who arrived in the U.S. as children meeting certain other eligibility criteria. In this paper, we use a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the effect of DACA on the occupational outcomes of young adults who arrived in the U.S. as children. Applying this strategy to individual-level data from the American Community Survey, we find that DACA eligibility decreases the likelihood that noncitizen childhood immigrants hold traditional immigrant jobs or jobs with a high risk of injury, and increases the likelihood of holding a government job or jobs that require occupational licensing. On the whole, DACA eligibility shifts noncitizen childhood immigrants to occupations that are higher-paying and employ more educated workers. These findings are consistent with legal barriers constraining undocumented childhood migrants from taking the jobs they are interested in and have the skills for. These workers are shunted to jobs they find less desirable and there are societal losses from the misallocation of talent. |
| JEL: | J08 J18 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34685 |
| By: | Gasmi, Farid; Kouakou, Dorgyles; Metevier, Samantha; Noumba Um, Paul |
| Abstract: | The emigration of highly educated and skilled individuals from low- and middle- to high-income countries has often been synonymous with human capital losses for the countries of origin, a phenomenon known as "brain drain" (Bhagwati and Hamada, 1974). However, under some conditions, these losses can be offset by human capital formation in the source countries precisely due to emigration. In this case, one talks about "beneficial brain drain" and this phenomenon has been coined "brain gain" (Stark et al., 1997, 1998). Using data on the Kingdom of Morocco covering the 1980-2022 period, we investigate the extent to which the government drew economic benefits from an important population of Moroccans living abroad by implementing return migration policies. More specifically, we explore the effects of measures targeting the Moroccan diasporas and their contributions to the Kingdom's economy on (i) the attractiveness of the Kingdom for foreign investors; (ii) the quality and capacity of the country's commercial air and maritime transport infrastructure; and (iii) the level of modernization of its public administration. The data analysis shows that these measures had a positive impact on each of these key dimensions of development, suggesting that this type of policies can be effective in capturing some of the "brain gain" effects that have been highlighted in the empirical literature on the relationship between emigration and development in developing countries (Beine et al., 2001, 2008; Batista et al., 2025). |
| Keywords: | Kingdom of Morocco; Brain drain; Brain gain; Return migration policy; Foreign; investment; Commercial transport; Public administration. |
| JEL: | F21 H54 J24 O11 O15 O55 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:131254 |
| By: | Gong, Binlei; Hu, Peinan; Jin, Songqing; Yuan, Lingran |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates how the weakening of restrictive government labor institutions influences labor reallocation by utilizing an unique institution change, which commonly referred as the 'Hukou reform' in China on internal migration and employment. We create a reform exposure variable by combining a 'link factor', which is the past migration patterns, and a 'pull factor', which is the Hukou reform in potential migration destinations, to capture the effects of Hukou reform across all provinces on an individual's labor decisions. We also classify the reform into different categories based on their relevance to rural residents' labor decisions. Our findings reveal that lower barriers to migration resulting from the Hukou reform significantly impact migration and job occupation. Notably, only the most relevant category of reform has significant effects. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea25:361187 |
| By: | Wagle, Sampada; Katarej, Bhagyashree |
| Abstract: | Immigrant labor constitutes a substantial portion of the US meat and poultry processing workforce. However, the downstream effects of deportations targeting these immigrants on their food safety practices remain largely unexamined. We provide novel empirical evidence that increased deportations of undocumented immigrants are associated with a rise in food safety inspection violations, suggestive of reduced food safety quality at these establishments. We also find evidence that wages and labor market dynamics adjust in ways consistent with labor shortages following deportations, marked by increases in wages, hires, separations, and employment, along with a modest reduction in turnover. By examining the potential downstream food safety risks associated with deportations, this research contributes to the broader policy discussion about the spillover effects of immigration enforcement on food safety and consumer welfare. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea25:360898 |
| By: | van Oosten, Sanne |
| Abstract: | Survey research on racial/ethnic minority citizens of Germany and the Netherlands tends to use the category migration background, instead of measuring whether that category has any meaning for respondents by asking how they identify. Through surveying 1864 respondents in Germany and the Netherlands, including 401 respondents with a background in Türkiye, this paper shows that those who identify as Turkish hold different attitudes than those who have a background in Türkiye but who identify as German or Dutch. I provide proof of this with attitudes towards topics often associated with citizens with a migration background: belonging, Islam and sexuality. Respondents with a background in Türkiye, who do not identify as Turkish, hold the same attitudes as those without a migration background, and significantly different attitudes than when a researcher would categorize them with those having a migration background in Türkiye. This demonstrates that using identification rather than categorization yields more accurate and meaningful insights into respondents’ attitudes. Beyond this empirical advantage to identification over categorization, this paper outlines additional conceptual, methodological, and normative advantages to measuring identification in surveys. |
| Date: | 2026–01–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9cqnk_v1 |