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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Hanna M. Schwank (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Millions of families migrate every year in search of better opportunities. Whether these opportunities materialize for the children brought with them depends on the quality of the destination that their parents selected. Exploiting variation in the age of migration, I analyze the impact of destination quality on the educational outcomes of childhood internal migrants in Indonesia. Using Population Census microdata from 2000 and 2010, I show that children who spend more time growing up in districts characterized by higher average educational attainment among permanent residents tend to exhibit greater probabilities of completing primary and secondary schooling. Moreover, educational outcomes of migrants converge with those of permanent residents at an average rate of 1.7 to 2.2 percent annually, with children from less educated households benefiting more from additional exposure. My findings suggest substantial heterogeneity of returns to childhood migration with respect to destination. |
| Keywords: | Internal migration, education, development, Indonesia |
| JEL: | I25 O15 D64 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:313&r= |
| By: | Parisa Ghasemi (University of Coimbra, Faculty of Economics); Paulino Teixeira (University of Coimbra, Centre for Business and Economics and Faculty of Economics); Carlos Carreira (University of Coimbra, Centre for Business and Economics and Faculty of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In this study, we investigate the impact of the share of the foreign labor force on the labor productivity of firms operating in Portugal between 2010 and 2019, drawing on data from two main sources: linked employer-employee data from Quadros de Pessoal and firm-level balance sheet data from SCIE-Sistema de Contas Integradas das Empresas. The empirical analysis, conducted using Fixed Effects Two-Stage Least Squares, shows that immigrants do not contribute to the productivity of firms in which they are employed. We further investigate whether the productivity response to increased immigrant labor varies across different subsamples. Notably, low-productivity firms experience adverse effects when the share of immigrants rises, whereas smaller firms benefit from their presence. Furthermore, our analysis shows a positive and statistically significant impact on labor productivity from foreign-born workers with 5 to 9 years of formal education. This finding suggests that this particular demographic brings valuable skills and contributions to the workforce, enhancing overall productivity levels. |
| Keywords: | Firms, Immigration, Low skilled Immigrants, Productivity |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:papers:2024-01&r= |
| By: | William L. Allen; Matthew D. Bird; Luisa Feline Freier; Isabel Ruiz; Carlos Vargas-Silva |
| Abstract: | Why do citizens hold different migration policy preferences? US and European evidence suggests political trust matters by raising support for more open policies, attenuating concerns about costs and strengthening beliefs in governments’ implementation abilities. However, this may not hold in countries with limited state capacity. Instead, we argue interpersonal trust placed in policy beneficiaries matters more as citizens circumvent weaker institutions. We test this using conjoint experiments in Colombia and Peru—low-capacity countries experiencing large inflows of forcibly-displaced Venezuelans—that vary aspects of migration policies. Political trust selectively moderates preferences on migrants’ employment rights and numerical limits, contributing novel evidence of boundary conditions for this form of trust. By contrast, greater interpersonal trust is linked to more open preferences across all tested domains. Our results cast doubt on the importance of political trust for migration preferences in contexts of limited state capacity, instead highlighting its partial substitution by interpersonal trust. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2024-09&r= |
| By: | James P. Choy |
| Abstract: | Institutions in some societies force employers to discriminate. I develop a theory of institutionalized discrimination. Optimal discrimination sorts workers from different social groups into complementary tasks. Workers in the politically dominant social group benefit from complementary labor supplied by oppressed group workers, but are harmed by competition from oppressed group workers for access to non-labor factors of production. The tradeoff between these two forces determines whether ethnic cleansing, institutionalized discrimination, or free labor markets are optimal for workers in the dominant group. I apply the model to apartheid South Africa and to the regulation of migrant labor in contemporary economies. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2024-06&r= |
| By: | Marianne Andries; Leonardo Bursztyn; Thomas Chaney; Milena Djourelova |
| Abstract: | We explore the mechanics of empathy. In a controlled immersive virtual reality experiment, we show that neutral information on unauthorized immigration magnifies the empathetic response of subjects when they witness the struggles of unauthorized migrants. We conjecture that perceiving others as similar magnifies empathy: it makes it possible to live their experience as if one were ‘in their shoes.’ In a separate, incentivized experiment, we show that the same neutral information increases perceived similarity to unauthorized migrants. We provide similar evidence in observational data, showing that contact with a given foreign origin group induces a greater empathetic response – more charitable donations – after the country of origin of this group is hit by a natural disaster, and a higher perceived similarity to this group. Together, our evidence suggests that the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person or group can be enhanced through standard policy tools such as neutral information provision and inter-group contact. |
| JEL: | C9 D91 Z00 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32569&r= |
| By: | Dany Bahar (Brown University; Harvard Growth Lab; Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the link between Southwest US border crossings and labor market tightness, measured by the job openings to unemployed ratio, over nearly 25 years (2000–2023). Analyzing monthly data, it finds a strong positive correlation, suggesting that increased border crossings align with greater job availability. Exploiting data across different presidential administrations reveals no statistically significant differences in this relationship, regardless of the President’s party. The findings suggest a natural economic adjustment mechanism in which crossings naturally decrease as the labor market cools. |
| Keywords: | migration, border crossings, labor market tightness |
| Date: | 2024–06–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:695&r= |
| By: | Chauvin, Juan Pablo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of changes in local public education budgets on individual schooling attainment and migration, as well as on local labor market outcomes. I leverage the introduction of FUNDEF, a large federal program that redistributed public education finance across Brazilian municipalities in the late 1990s, as a source of exogenous variation. Using a cohort-exposure design, I find that, at the individual level, doubling the program-related public education budget led to a 1.4 percentage point increase in the likelihood of completing primary school, and a 0.5 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of staying in the local labor market among exposed cohorts, on average. The mobility effects are concentrated among individuals educated in municipalities that received a positive budget shock as a result of the program, which were also characterized by relatively worse local labor market conditions. At the local labor market level, difference-in-differences estimates suggest that higher public education budgets were associated with lower employment rates and average wages, suggesting that the “brain drain” effect depressed local labor demand in the long run. |
| Keywords: | school spending;schooling attainment;Migration |
| JEL: | I20 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13497&r= |
| By: | J. David Brown; Misty L. Heggeness |
| Abstract: | Several small-sample studies have predicted that a citizenship question in the 2020 Census would cause a large drop in self-response rates. In contrast, minimal effects were found in Poehler et al.’s (2020) analysis of the 2019 Census Test randomized controlled trial (RCT). We reconcile these findings by analyzing associations between characteristics about the addresses in the 2019 Census Test and their response behavior by linking to independently constructed administrative data. We find significant heterogeneity in sensitivity to the citizenship question among households containing Hispanics, naturalized citizens, and noncitizens. Response drops the most for households containing noncitizens ineligible for a Social Security number (SSN). It falls more for households with Latin American-born immigrants than those with immigrants from other countries. Response drops less for households with U.S.-born Hispanics than households with noncitizens from Latin America. Reductions in responsiveness occur not only through lower unit self-response rates, but also by increased household roster omissions and internet break-offs. The inclusion of a citizenship question increases the undercount of households with noncitizens. Households with noncitizens also have much higher citizenship question item nonresponse rates than those only containing citizens. The use of tract-level characteristics and significant heterogeneity among Hispanics, the foreign-born, and noncitizens help explain why the effects found by Poehler et al. were so small. Linking administrative microdata with the RCT data expands what we can learn from the RCT. |
| Keywords: | Administrative records, noncitizen coverage, sensitive questions, survey error |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-31&r= |
| By: | Hanna M. Schwank (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Natural disasters are growing in frequency globally. Understanding how vulnerable populations respond to these disasters is essential for effective policy response. This paper explores the short- and long-run consequences of the 1906 San Francisco Fire, one of the largest urban fires in American history. Using linked Census records, I follow residents of San Francisco and their children from 1900 to 1940. Historical records suggest that exogenous factors such as wind and the availability of water determined where the fire stopped. I implement a spatial regression discontinuity design across the boundary of the razed area to identify the effect of the fire on those who lost their home to it. I find that in the short run, the fire displaced affected residents, forced them into lower paying occupations and out of entrepreneurship. Experiencing the disaster disrupted children’s school attendance and led to an average loss of six months of education. While most effects attenuated over time, the negative effect on business ownership persists even in 1940, 34 years after the fire. Therefore, my findings reject the hope for a “reversal of fortune” for the victims, in contrast to what is found for more recent natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina. |
| Keywords: | Natural disasters, internal migration, economic history, regional and urban economics |
| JEL: | N91 N31 Q54 O15 J61 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:312&r= |
| By: | Helen Dempster (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | Migration research is taking place within a rapidly evolving, contested, and polarized space. It is difficult for researchers who are seeking to influence policymaking on migration to communicate their research, and see their findings translated into action. Arguably, one reason for this lack of translation is that many researchers ignore the outsized role that the public has within migration policymaking. This paper focuses on how researchers can best communicate their findings to policymakers and the public by interrogating what they produce (translating long and complex reports into nuanced narratives, combining facts and emotion-based arguments); who they target (tailoring findings to those in the ‘conflicted’ middle); how they disseminate it (using mediums that appeal to a researchers’ target audience); and when they disseminate it (engaging with the policy adoption process throughout). |
| Date: | 2024–03–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:688&r= |
| By: | Shi, Xiangyu |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I argue that in situations of complex network dependence, the traditional and widely used Hausman-style instrumental variable estimation may not be valid for causal identification. This is the case for inter-regional migration networks when evaluating place-based labor market policies, and for correlated unobserved consumer tastes in the product and geographic space in demand estimation. I build an economic model for these two cases, respectively, to derive the estimating equation and to shed light on the fallacy---omitted variable bias and the resulting violation of exclusion restriction---of the traditional econometric framework. I then build an alternative econometric framework and propose a new approach to estimation that exploits higher-order network neighbors and, then, I establish its desirable properties. I conduct Monte Carlo simulations and two empirical analyses that each correspond to the two economic models to validate this new approach of estimation. |
| Keywords: | treatment effect; network; instrumental variable; Hausman IV; spatial linkages; migration network; demand estimation |
| JEL: | C0 C1 C3 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121349&r= |
| By: | Hammarstedt, Mats (Linnaeus University); Skedinger, Per (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | We examine immigrant self-employment in Sweden during 2011–2021 – a turbulent decade with a large influx of refugees into the country and the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Four outcome variables are investigated: the probability of self-employment, the probability of entry into and exit from this state and earnings of the self-employed. This is done for different cohorts of immigrants from Africa and Asia and for different types of businesses, unincorporated and incorporated firms. We find that immigrants have lower business earnings and higher exit rates from self-employment than natives, which is in line with previous research. It also turns out that the period in which the immigrants arrived to Sweden and the type of business they are engaged in have important implications for outcomes. In most cases, outcomes are more favorable for the earliest of the three cohorts we study, those who came to Sweden up to the turn of the millennium, and less so for the latest arrivals during the turbulent decade. Moreover, immigrants in incorporated self-employment who arrived during 2011–2021 fared less badly, relative to earlier cohorts, in terms of business earnings than their counterparts in unincorporated businesses, while results concerning exits from self-employment are mixed in this respect. |
| Keywords: | Self-employment; Immigrants; COVID-19; Refugee crisis |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2024–06–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1497&r= |
| By: | A K M Zakaria (Department of Business Economics and Management, School of Business Administration, Silesian University) |
| Abstract: | Marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are leading departments within an organization, contributing significantly to achieving industrial success. In the microfinance industry, CRM plays a crucial role in building customer trust and understanding their needs better. When serving refugee entrepreneurs, microfinance organizations face additional challenges due to diverse languages and cultures. However, they also have substantial opportunities to expand their business among refugee entrepreneurs. The aim of this working paper is to highlight the importance of CRM in the microfinance industry when serving refugee entrepreneurs in Europe. The study will analyse the challenges and opportunities of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in caring to this specific customer segment. The findings will assist microfinance institutes' marketing and CRM departments in satisfying refugee customers and achieving organizational objectives. |
| Keywords: | CRM, refugee entrepreneurs, CRM on microfinance, MFIs, marketing |
| JEL: | L26 L31 M31 |
| Date: | 2023–07–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:opa:wpaper:0075&r= |
| By: | Chen, Shuai; Powdthavee, Nattavudh; Wiese, Juliane |
| Abstract: | We study whether the model minority stereotype about Asian Americans (e.g., hard-working, intelligent) reduces people's attention to inequality that adversely affects Asians. In a nationally representative US sample (N=3, 257), we find that around 90% of the participants either moderately or strongly believe that Asians work harder and are more economically successful compared to other ethnic minorities. We then demonstrate that an increase in the model minority belief has a dose-response relationship with people's tendency to overestimate incomes for Asians but not for Whites and Blacks. In a basic cognitive task, people are more likely to see an equal distribution of resources between Asians and people of other races when Asians have less than others by design. Although there is little evidence that a marginal increase in the model minority belief significantly reduces people's attention to inequality that adversely affects Asians in a pattern detection hiring task, we find that people who hold a strong model minority stereotype are only more likely to naturalistically point out unfair hiring practices when Whites are discriminated against. Our results offer new insights into the possible mechanisms behind why many Americans are relatively more apathetic toward Asians' unfair treatment and negative experiences compared to those of other races. |
| Keywords: | Asian Americans, model minority, stereotype, inequality, attention, redistribution |
| JEL: | D63 D91 J15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1449&r= |