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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | David Argente; Esteban Méndez; Diana Van Patten |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how new varieties enter markets and become locally available. We provide causal evidence of demand externalities that operate in two steps. First, information about new varieties diffuses directly through real-world social ties among consumers. Second, early purchases generate an indirect spillover to firms: local retailers learn from "pioneer'' consumers which new varieties are most likely to succeed and adjust their product offerings accordingly. We study this process in the context of direct-to-consumer imports. Using customs records on individuals' purchases matched to population-wide social networks, international migrant links, and retailer catchment areas, we document economically meaningful demand externalities. Product-specific demand shocks abroad transmit through migrant networks and shift which varieties consumers purchase. Leveraging these shocks as a plausibly exogenous source of local demand variation, we show strong peer effects: prior purchases by close neighbors, coworkers, or friends increase an individual’s likelihood of purchasing the same variety, especially for premium and visible goods. We leverage this result to identify an indirect spillover from consumers to firms: retailers are more likely to add a variety when it becomes popular among consumers in their catchment area. Combining the instrument with linked consumer--retailer data and a self-conducted retailer survey, we show that this response reflects learning about latent demand for varieties not yet stocked locally. Together, social diffusion and retailer learning generate demand multipliers that reshape local product availability and expand access to global variety. |
| JEL: | D22 D8 E02 F1 F14 F15 F6 L2 O1 O12 O3 O30 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35104 |
| By: | Ramón Talvi Robledo; Christopher Rauh; Ben Seimon; Hannes Mueller; Laura Mayoral |
| Abstract: | Forced displacement is an important policy challenge, yet forecasting is hindered by sparse, annually observed flow data and reporting delays. This article proposes a forecasting method for country outflows and dyadic flows tailored to this sparse data setting. We combine slow-moving structural predictors with high-frequency text-based signals, compress high-dimensional news into low-dimensional topic representations via Latent Dirichlet Allocation to mitigate overfitting, and estimate a stacked ensemble of gradient-boosted trees that captures non-linear origin–destination interactions while making optimal use of the available data. We further apply conformal prediction to construct statistically valid prediction intervals for bilateral flows. Analyzing the text component yields that destination-specific search intensity of migration terms is a central predictor of subsequent dyadic displacement flows. |
| Keywords: | conformal prediction, dyadic, early warning, forced displacement, forecasting, Google trends, machine learning |
| JEL: | P16 C53 D72 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1573 |
| By: | Tareq Alsaleh; Bilal Farooq; Zachary Patterson |
| Abstract: | We examine these relationships using a panel dataset of more than 80, 000 trip observations from 100 participants through a custom-built mobile application. A joint revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) framework is used to estimate multinomial logit (MNL) and mixed logit (MXL) models. The level of integration is represented through a composite index capturing economic, social, civic, and health dimensions of integration. Results indicate two distinct patterns. First, the estimated models suggest that new immigrants in the sample exhibit lower sensitivity to in-vehicle travel time than Canadian-born respondents. The mixed logit specification suggests that the value of travel time for the sampled immigrants is approximately 66% lower than that of Canadian-born residents, with a immigrant-to-Canadian-born ratio of 0.34 that is consistent across both MXL specifications. Second, higher levels of integration are associated with reduced transit use and greater car reliance. A one standard deviation increase in the integration index decreases the probability of choosing public transit by approximately five percentage points. The joint RP-SP specification allows the inclusion of emerging e-mobility alternatives not yet observed in revealed behaviour; these face no inherent preference penalty, competing purely on their level-of-service attributes. Out-of-sample validation using five-fold cross-validation produces a mean prediction accuracy between 80% and 82% across model specifications. The findings suggest that transit policies in immigrant-receiving cities could prioritize service quality improvements, particularly reductions in access time, which are approximately three times more effective than fare reductions in shifting immigrants toward transit use. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.15564 |
| By: | Felipe Goncalves; Elisa Jacome; Emily Weisburst |
| Abstract: | We study the role of victim reporting in the production of public safety. We examine the Secure Communities program, a crime-reduction policy that involved police in detecting unauthorized immigrants and increased deportation fears in immigrant communities. We find that the policy reduced the likelihood that Hispanic victims report crimes to police and increased offending against Hispanics. The number of reported crimes is unchanged, masking these opposing effects. We show that reduced reporting drives the offending increase and provide the first elasticity of offending to victim reporting in the literature, calculating that a 10% decline in reporting increases offending by 7.9%. |
| Keywords: | Public Safety, Community Engagement, Victim Reporting, Secure Communities |
| JEL: | J15 K37 K42 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-23 |
| By: | Kalee E. Burns; Julie L. Hotchkiss |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role that homophily might play in explaining racial/ethnic disparities in the labor market. We find that Black and Hispanic workers are less responsive than White workers to changes in job opportunities, but responsiveness increases when those opportunities present themselves in locations with a higher share own-race population. The analysis makes use of restricted American Community Survey data, accessible through the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers, allowing us to include commuting zones that may otherwise not be identified because of suppressed location information in the public data |
| Keywords: | regional labor markets; regional migration; geographic mobility; racial disparities; migration policy; migration costs; social costs; homophily; place-based; people-based; geographic mismatch |
| JEL: | R22 J61 J15 J18 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-22 |
| By: | Clemens, Michael (George Mason University, Peterson Institute for International Economics, and IZA); Neufeld, Jeremy (Institute for Progress); Nice, Amy (Institute for Progress) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how proposed U.S. restrictions on international students would affect the nation's STEM workforce and long-run economic growth. Focusing on the most common pipeline from U.S. universities to the labor market, we show that international education is the principal mechanism by which the United States recruits and retains high-skill STEM talent. We present survey evidence suggesting that proposed policy changes will deter substantial numbers of international students from studying in the United States and remaining in its workforce after graduation. We then estimate the effects of plausible policy-induced declines in the number of foreign STEM graduates entering the U.S. workforce. A sustained one-third reduction would shrink the high-skill STEM workforce by about 6 percent overall, potentially by more than 11 percent at the Ph.D. level, and would lead to long-run GDP losses of $240 billion to $481 billion annually. These losses are unlikely to be offset by U.S.-born workers or foreign-trained workers abroad. Drawing on evidence on innovation, entrepreneurship, and spillovers, we conclude that restricting this talent pipeline would weaken innovative capacity and long-run productivity in the U.S. economy. |
| Keywords: | immigration, productivity, skill, students, universities, research, innovation, patents, productivity, macroeconomic, restrictions, barriers |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18548 |
| By: | Guillaume Blanc and Romain Wacziarg (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | For most of human history, until the fertility transition, technological progress translated into larger populations, preventing sustained improvements in living standards. We argue that migration offered an escape valve from these Malthusian dynamics after the European discovery and colonization of the Americas. We document a strong relationship between fertility and migration across countries, regions, individuals, and periods, in a variety of datasets and specifications, and with different identification strategies. During the Age of Mass Migration, persistently high fertility across much of Europe created a large reservoir of surplus labor that could find better opportunities in the New World. These migrations, by relieving demographic pressures, accelerated the transition to modern growth. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp26-05 |
| By: | Omoyele, Daramola Joseph |
| Abstract: | The United Kingdom–Nigeria migration corridor has expanded substantially since 2021, generating significant public and policy debate in both countries. Existing scholarship tends to evaluate the economic impact of this migration at a single point in time, focusing either on labour market contributions, tuition fee income, or remittance outflows without integrating these flows into a coherent temporal account. This article addresses that gap by proposing and applying a migration lifecycle framework to Nigerian entrants to the United Kingdom via study and work routes between 2021 and 2025. Drawing on human capital theory, the New Economics of Labour Migration, and balance of payments analysis, the framework identifies three analytically distinct stages: an entry stage characterised by substantial upfront inflows to the UK through tuition fees, visa charges, and the Immigration Health Surcharge; a transition stage in which migrants move from study to employment via the Graduate and Skilled Worker routes; and a settlement stage characterised by sustained remittance outflows to Nigeria. Integrating quantitative data from HESA, the Home Office, the ONS, the OECD, and the World Bank with published secondary sources, the article demonstrates that the UK is a net fiscal beneficiary of this corridor across the full lifecycle, while Nigeria bears formation costs that remittances only partially and indirectly compensate. The article further identifies a recursive dynamic in which settlement-stage remittances finance the education of subsequent migrant cohorts, rendering the corridor self-reproducing. Policy implications are drawn for both the United Kingdom's immigration framework and Nigeria's diaspora engagement strategy. |
| Date: | 2026–04–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:guzxs_v1 |
| By: | Capretti, Lisa (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Centofanti, Francesca (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Farcomeni, Alessio (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Rosati, Furio (University of Rome Tor Vergata) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines temporary migration and return decisions among immigrants in Italy using a novel administrative dataset covering 3.7 million foreign-born individuals between 2011 and 2022. By reconstructing individual migration histories, we estimate migration duration using parametric survival models, quantile regressions for interval-censored data, competing risk models, and a split cure model that distinguishes permanent settlement from the timing of exit. Results show that out-migration is concentrated in the first five years after arrival, while most migrants remain in Italy over the 12-year observation window. Age and gender matter, but local conditions within Italy strongly shape migration duration. Higher local incomes are associated with longer stays, while higher rental prices accelerate departures. Regional disparities also matter independently of economic variables: migrants in the South and Islands remain significantly longer than those in the North. These findings show that heterogeneity within host countries, rather than national averages alone, shapes migration trajectories and highlights the importance of local labor markets and living conditions. |
| Keywords: | migration dynamics, temporary migration, regional disparities, survival analysis. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 C41 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18526 |