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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Ha Nguyen; Ashwini Arulrajhan; Carlo Pizzinelli; Mr. Ippei Shibata |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how house prices shape internal migration across Spain’s provinces and the implications for the spatial allocation of labor. Using a gravity-style framework, we estimate the causal impact of destination and origin house prices on bilateral migration flows between 2007-2023. To address the potential endogeneity of house prices, we instrument provincial house prices with a Bartik-style predictor of external inflows of foreign migrants, allowing this housing demand shock to have larger price effects in provinces with tighter land constraints. The instrumental variable (IV) estimates show that housing costs constitute a significant barrier to internal migrants—a 10 percent increase in destination house prices reduces inflows by about 4.0 percent, while a 10 percent increase in origin house prices increases outflows by about 2.8 percent. These push effects of origin house prices are larger for foreign-born and foreign-born young individuals compared to natives. Rental costs have even stronger effects than home sale prices. A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that if house prices in high-productivity provinces had not grown faster than the inflation over 2017-23, about 63, 000 more working-age individuals would have migrated to these provinces, as opposed to just 1, 700 (in net terms) in practice. While the direct implied GDP gain would have been small—about 0.05 percent over this period, such gains would accumulate over time if regional divergence in house prices were left unaddressed. Furthermore, this estimate does not factor in the much larger gains from attracting a large number of recent foreign immigrants—not studied here—to the most-productive regions. |
| Keywords: | Internal migration; housing prices; housing affordability; labor mobility; spatial allocation of labor; regional productivity; Spain; housing cost; housing price; rental price; origin-price elasticity; migration flow; price growth; price response; destination-price elasticity; rental-price elasticity; endogenous price dynamics; price appreciation; rental cost; prices increase; Migration; Housing; Productivity |
| Date: | 2026–04–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2026/065 |
| By: | Portes, Jonathan (King's College London); Springford, John (Centre for European Reform) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal impact of Brexit on migrant employment in the United Kingdom using a synthetic difference-in-differences (SDID) framework. We construct a counterfactual trajectory for the UK based on a weighted combination of comparable European economies and compare post-referendum outcomes to this benchmark. Rather than analysing migration flows, which are subject to substantial revision and comparability issues, we focus on employment stocks of foreign-born workers using administrative payroll data. We find that Brexit led to a large compositional shift in migrant labour supply and a modest change in its overall size. Employment of EU-origin workers declined substantially relative to the counterfactual following the 2016 referendum and the subsequent end of free movement. However, this decline was more than offset by a sharp increase in employment among non-EU workers after the introduction of the post-Brexit immigration system in 2021. By 2024, total foreign-born employment is about 0.6% higher than in the absence of Brexit. Brexit did not reduce migrant labour supply as widely expected, but instead reconfigured its composition, and highlight the interaction between migration policy and labour demand. |
| Keywords: | immigration, employment, UK, Brexit, synthetic differences in differences |
| JEL: | J61 J21 F22 J23 C23 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18478 |
| By: | Mark Borgschulte; Heepyung Cho; Darren Lubotsky |
| Abstract: | We examine the differential effects of minimum wages on immigrant and native workers in the United States. We find that minimum wage increases lead to reduced hours of work among immigrants with no effect on their employment. The effects are concentrated among recently-arrived, likely-undocumented workers in high turnover industries. Native workers show no such response, even when examining native subgroups with similar characteristics to the most affected immigrants. We conclude that affected immigrant labor markets feature low-surplus, low-investment employment relationships with flexible hours, but they are embedded in labor markets where replacement is unusually costly. |
| JEL: | J08 J15 J38 J42 J61 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35038 |
| By: | Osborne Jackson |
| Abstract: | Proficiency in a country’s primary language is a skill that can be expected to improve labor market outcomes. Considering the United States specifically, individuals with strong English-language skills presumably could fare better in US labor markets compared with individuals who are less proficient in the language. These benefits potentially are most relevant for immigrants since their English proficiency may be lower on average than it is for natives. Given the importance of immigration to the economy of New England, where it plays a central role in population growth and where foreign-born persons comprise one-fifth of the labor force, the impact of increased English proficiency on labor market outcomes may be particularly relevant for the region. |
| Keywords: | New England; English proficiency; labor market outcomes; language skills; earnings; immigration |
| JEL: | J24 J30 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–04–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbcr:103017 |
| By: | Daniel J. Wilson; Xiaoqing Zhou |
| Abstract: | From early 2021 to early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, followed by a rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. We provide the first systematic empirical assessment of the labor- and housing-market effects of this episode. Using newly available administrative microdata on individual immigrants, we construct measures of net unauthorized immigration at the national and local levels and exploit plausibly exogenous variation across local markets. We find that unauthorized immigrant worker flows (UIWF) increased local employment approximately one-for-one, without significant declines in local wages. These inflows also raised local house prices and rents without expanding housing supply, consistent with a housing demand shock in the face of short-run inelastic supply. Lastly, we find that UIWF reduced labor income per capita, consistent with downward wage composition of the local workforce, and strongly reduced government transfers. These findings should help inform policy debates surrounding how unauthorized immigrant labor supply impacts local labor and housing markets as well as public finances. |
| Keywords: | immigration; labor market; housing market; unauthorized immigration; post-pandemic |
| JEL: | E24 H53 J11 J21 J22 J23 J31 J61 R31 |
| Date: | 2026–03–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:102961 |
| By: | S{\l}awomir Ku\'zmar |
| Abstract: | The rapid expansion of remote work following the last pandemic has renewed interest in whether spatial decoupling of residence from workplace can contribute to rebalancing regional development across the European Union. This paper examines four interrelated dimensions of remote work-induced residential mobility using the R-MAP survey dataset, a large-scale cross-sectional survey of over 7, 400 remote workers across Europe collected in 2024. First, the spatial direction of post-2020 relocations is analysed, revealing that mobility occurs overwhelmingly within the same urbanisation tier, with urban-to-urban moves accounting for 67% of all relocations. Counter-urban flows to- ward rural areas remain marginal at just 2% of moves, though their relative demograph- ic impact on small rural populations is non-trivial. Second, the motivational structure of relocation decisions is examined, showing that quality-of-life considerations dominate (cited by 78% of movers), followed by economic and housing factors (70%), while digital infrastructure ranks among the least cited reasons. Third, amenity preferences are compared across residential contexts, documenting striking convergence between urban and rural remote workers, with statistically significant differences emerging only for public transport and restaurant access. Fourth, logistic regression models reveal that remote work intensity is a consistent positive predictor of relocation probability, with a transition from 50% to fully remote work associated with a 6.5 percentage point in- crease in relocation likelihood. Age, education, and industry sector also shape mobility patterns. Overall, the findings suggest that remote work primarily stretches metropolitan systems and reinforces peri-urban zones rather than triggering large-scale redistribution toward structurally weaker peripheral regions. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.08252 |