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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Rajiv, Sharanya; De Block, Wouter; Ergasheva, Tanzila; Maertens, Miet; Mardonova, Mohru; Van Hoyweghen, Kaat |
| Abstract: | Labor migration is often driven by a need for income, and can also be motivated by a desire for higher earnings. A naïve assumption is therefore that an increase in local livelihood alternatives might reduce outmigration, something which has been found to hold true in some settings, but not in others. This study employs a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with 408 rural respondents in Tajikistan—a country heavily reliant on remittances from abroad—to assess whether specific local income-generating opportunities, such as those offered through cash-for-work programs or through the provision of additional farmland, might affect stated preferences regarding migration. The study explores trade-offs between local income generating opportunities (wage employment, access to farmland, and irrigation infrastructure) and migration restrictions, i.e., hypothetical constraints on household members migrating abroad for a given duration. We rely on stated rather than revealed preferences to examine these trade-offs. Our findings lend some support to the idea that households are willing to accept outmigration restrictions in return for improved local income-generation opportunities, either through wage employment or own-farming. Yet, findings are heterogeneous and depend on the households’ current and anticipated reliance on labor migration. |
| Keywords: | migration; livelihoods; land; income transfers; remittances; public works; Tajikistan; Central Asia |
| Date: | 2026–04–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:182632 |
| By: | Gomez Tamayo, Sofia; De Moraes, Gael; Petrelli, Andrea; Chartouni, Carole; Soytas, Mehmet Ali; Rivera Guivas, Nayib |
| Abstract: | A sizable portion of the global population is made up of migrants. Individuals migrate in search of employment, better economic prospects, education, or to reunite with family, while others flee war, oppression, conflict, or human rights abuses. Recently, negative impacts of climate change, natural disasters, and other environmental factors have become a contributing factor to migration. Such demographic shifts and economic, political, and environmental crises create incentives, known as push and pull factors, for individuals to migrate in search of better opportunities. This trend of cross-border migration presents both challenges and opportunities for policymakers of both sending and receiving countries. This note focuses on the aspects, tools and policies to be considered by the latter. |
| Date: | 2025–12–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:206974 |
| By: | Rojas Venzor, Jesús |
| Abstract: | The electoral rise of right-wing populism has reshaped domestic political competition across Western democracies. Democratic governments have simultaneously developed bilateral arrangements to control migration, often involving authoritarian partners with questionable legal and human rights practices. In this paper, I present a novel dataset on the emergence of these agreements across five continents and over the last thirty years. I then develop a theory of foreign policy co-optation that explains when and why governments appropriate flexible foreign policy instruments central to the narrative of the opposition to reduce their electoral threat. I show that bilateral security Cooperation Arrangements on Migration (CAMs) are most likely to emerge when incumbent governments are challenged by right-wing populist parties, especially from left-of-center governments. The findings suggest that right-wing populist pressure paradoxically enables executives to manage electoral opposition through foreign policy, highlighting the need to revisit assumptions about the domestic sources of international cooperation and migration policy. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, Migration Governance, Populism, Border Security, Bilateral Security Agreements, Foreign Policy Co-optation |
| Date: | 2026–05–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:globco:qt9vz7h2xz |
| By: | Jonatan Andersson (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University); Göran Ulväng (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | This article studies the role of disamenity work in the rural sector in the shift in the urban sector and growth of cities. We focus on the effects of dairy farming, a sector with famously harsh working conditions, in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century on rural-urban migration, which was extensive at the time. We use several high-quality historical sources in our study. First, to measure dairy farming concentration in a parish, we digitize parts of the 1890 agricultural census which contains parish-level information on the number of cows per cultivation unit. Second, to identify rural-urban migrants, we link young rural individuals across the 1890 and 1910 Swedish censuses. Third, to interpret our results causally, we digitize records of historical farm property subdivisions that predict concentration in 1890. OLS, reduced form, and 2SLS estimates all point in the same direction, that high levels of dairy farming concentration in a parish pushed its residents to cities. We show that the estimates were similar for men and women, but that it was especially the lower classes and landless groups that responded to the treatment. This likely reflects that they were the most likely to perform manual labor on the large livestock farms. Ultimately, our results strongly suggest that preferences against disamenity work in the rural sector contributed to the rise in the urban sector and growth of cities. |
| Keywords: | migration, urbanization, agriculture |
| JEL: | N33 N53 N93 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0303 |
| By: | Collins, Matthew; Dempsey, Seraphim; Griffin, Míde; Finan, Olivia |
| Abstract: | Clemens et al. (2018) examine the impact of the exclusion of Mexican immigrant workers, known as braceros, from US agricultural labour markets in the 1960s. The explicit goal of this policy was to boost wages and/or employment for local agricultural workers by decreasing labour supply. The authors present a theoretical framework which argues that this policy may not have the desired impacts if firms can adjust capital inputs in response. Their main finding is that there is no effect of the bracero exclusion on the wages or employment of local agricultural workers. They provide evidence of increased mechanisation in response to decreased labour supply. We conduct a computational and robustness reproduction of the main results presented in Clemens et al. (2018). Using the reproduction package provided by the original authors, we successfully computationally reproduce the main results. Our robustness reproduction comprises three distinct robustness checks. We test the sensitivity of the results to changing the base year used to define treatment. We implement a more recently proposed difference-in-difference estimators in the presence of a continuous treatment variable. Finally, we change how missingness is dealt with in one outcome variable-domestic seasonal employment. Our results do not provide compelling evidence to challenge the findings of the original paper. However, we note that large confidence intervals around point estimates make it difficult to draw conclusions of a precise null effect. |
| Keywords: | Reproduction, replication, labour markets, immigration, agriculture, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | C18 J15 J18 J22 J31 J43 J61 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:298 |
| By: | Fabiola Alba-Vivar (Wake Forest University); Eduardo Campillo-Betancourt (CRI Foundation, Boston MA); Jose Luis Flor-Toro (Independent Researcher, Lima Peru) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal effect of exclusionary citizenship policies on communicable disease transmission. In 2013, the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court Ruling 168-13 retroactively revoked citizenship from roughly 10 percent of the population—primarily individuals of Haitian descent—thereby restricting their access to healthcare. Leveraging municipality-level variation in exposure within a difference-in-differences framework as well as individual administrative data, we identify a two-stage dynamic in dengue incidence. In the short run, reported cases decline by 13.5 percent in high-exposure municipalities, consistent with healthcare avoidance among affected populations. This decline reverses after six months, as untreated infections generate spillover transmission to non-Haitian populations, increasing cases by 16.7 percent. Overall, the findings demonstrate that restricting healthcare access through citizenship policy imposes substantial public health costs that extend beyond the targeted population. |
| Keywords: | citizenship; communicable diseases; dengue; Dominican Republic |
| JEL: | I18 J15 F22 I14 O15 C23 |
| Date: | 2026–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:wfuewp:022596 |
| By: | Carlos, Jean Clarisse T.; Celero, Jocelyn O.; Katigbak-Montoya, Evangeline O. |
| Abstract: | The increasing prevalence of aging populations in the Asia-Pacific region has led to significant changes in the demand for labor in caregiving, domestic, and healthcare sectors, particularly in economies such as Singapore, Japan, and Australia. These structural-demographic shifts have intensified the reliance on migrant workers, with Filipina women emerging as a critical labor force within the region's global value chains (GVCs). Despite their critical role in addressing labor shortages, these workers face precarious employment conditions, gendered inequalities, and limited access to social protections. The sustainability of such care labor systems raises critical concerns as aging societies continue to deepen their dependence on migrant labor, highlighting the need for robust policy interventions, mapping of care and value chains, and regional cooperation. The study investigates how global value chains (GVCs) and global care chains (GCCs) intersect in shaping the roles, experiences, and challenges of Filipina migrant workers in aging societies in the Asia-Pacific region. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, it explores policy frameworks, labor conditions, and projections to understand how domestic and regional interventions can ensure sustainable, equitable, and technology-enabled labor systems within the caregiving and healthcare sectors of Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Findings reveal that the future of work in aging societies is deeply gendered, transnational, and dependent on care labor mobility. Across the Asia-Pacific, the Philippines remains a major supplier of women workers in caregiving, healthcare, and domestic work—sectors that sustain the social and economic well-being of aging populations in Australia, Japan, and Singapore. Data from the Philippine Labor Force Survey (2023) and TESDA records (2023–2024) illustrate that women constitute an overwhelming majority of the country's care labor force, where female participation rates in caregiving training programs exceed 85 percent. These structural patterns reinforce the Philippines' comparative advantage as a provider of skilled, English-speaking, and culturally adaptable caregivers. Comments to this paper are welcome within 60 days from the date of posting. Email publications@pids.gov.ph. |
| Keywords: | Care labor, Philippines, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Global Value Chains (GVCs), Global Care Chains (GCCs), bilateral and regional cooperation |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2026-12 |