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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Brizar, Marina; Maystadt, Jean-François; Moussa, Nour; Rostom, Nada; Siu, Jade; Sterck, Olivier; Walder, Sarah |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates refugee labour mobility as a complementary pathway to traditional resettlement through a mixed-methods study of Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), a non-profit organisation connecting displaced professionals with international employment opportunities. Combining longitudinal surveys with qualitative interviews across multiple countries, we examine both the impacts and scalability of employer-driven labour mobility pathways for refugees. Preliminary findings suggest that relocation through TBB improves employment outcomes, earnings, perceived safety, and social integration among displaced workers, although short-term adjustment costs remain significant. Qualitative evidence highlights strong demand for labour mobility pathways alongside persistent barriers, including documentation requirements, financial constraints, and policy uncertainty. The findings suggest that refugee labour mobility can complement existing durable solutions when supported by enabling migration policies, employer engagement, and targeted skills development and support mechanisms. |
| Date: | 2026–07–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:213132 |
| By: | Anna Hasselqvist |
| Abstract: | Academic inequality between migrants and natives is often attributed to family dynamics that are difficult to observe. Siblings provide a way to study them: I estimate the effect of having a high-achieving sibling on the educational outcomes of children in migrant and native families. Using exogenous variation in sibling achievement from Sweden’s school-entry cutoff in a Regression Discontinuity Design, I show that second-generation migrant girls face a unique disadvantage. A high-achieving brother lowers their grades, while a high-achieving sister has a small positive influence. Spillover effects are negligible for boys and native children regardless of sibling gender. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that traditional cultural norms contribute to this disadvantage, and parental labor market integration substantially attenuates it. |
| Keywords: | Sibling spillovers, second-generation migrants, gender norms, school starting age |
| JEL: | I24 J13 J15 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2178 |
| By: | Maczulskij, Terhi |
| Abstract: | Abstract This study examines the effects of the 2004 European Union enlargement on firm productivity and innovation in Finland. Using linked employer–employee and firm-level data, the analysis exploits increased access to workers from the ten new EU member states (EU10). To address the endogenous geographic distribution of immigrants, I construct an instrumental variable based on historically predetermined migration patterns. The results show that increased EU10 employment raises firm labor productivity, the probability of having a granted patent, and STEM employment, while effects on other innovation outcomes are more limited. The responses also differ across sectors. In manufacturing, EU10 employment increases process innovation but reduces STEM employment, whereas in services it increases labor productivity and the probability of having granted patents. Overall, the findings suggest that immigration-induced labor-supply changes can improve firm performance and affect selected dimensions of innovation, with the effects varying across sectors and innovation margins. |
| Keywords: | EU enlargement, Firms, Immigration, Innovation, Instrumental variables, Productivity |
| JEL: | D22 F22 O30 |
| Date: | 2026–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:wpaper:145 |
| By: | Grigoriadis, Theocharis; Veselov, Dmitriy |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a political-economy game of skilled exit, redistribution, repression, and regime survival. Skilled workers are economically valuable because they become entrepreneurs, pay taxes, and generate productive externalities for low-skilled workers. They are also politically dangerous because they can enter political competition in democracy, participate in revolution- ary collective action in autocracy, or leave the country altogether. Governments therefore face a strategic tradeoff. Retaining skilled citizens raises output and fiscal capacity, but it can also increase electoral or revolutionary pressure. Allowing skilled citizens to leave weakens development, but it may relax the incumbent's political constraint. In democracy, redistribution toward the low-skilled majority lowers the return to skilled entrepreneurship and can induce exit. In autocracy, exit barriers and repression are alternative technologies of political survival: hard dictatorships can restrict exit and extract from skilled workers, while soft dictatorships may tolerate emigration because it reduces the pool of potential protesters. We characterize this logic in a one-shot benchmark and a dynamic extension with persistent brain drain and absorbing political turnover. We also allow repression costs to rise with the human-capital intensity of the economy, so that repression becomes more destructive precisely when skilled labor is more productive. The model yields a comparative regime logic of skilled exit: emigration is highest where exit directly relaxes the incumbent's political constraint, as in soft dictatorship, or where redistribution lowers the domestic return to skilled entrepreneurship, as in redistributive democracy; it is lower in elitist democracy and lowest in hard dictatorship. |
| Keywords: | brain drain, migration, democracy, dictatorship, redistribution, repression, political competition, revolution, institutions |
| JEL: | D72 D73 D78 F22 J24 O15 P16 P26 P48 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:342530 |
| By: | Benjamin A. Endriga (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas); Alyssa Cyrielle B. Villanueva (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) |
| Abstract: | As a significant source of external funding for developing countries, international remittances have been widely studied for their impact on development in general, as well as their effects on economic growth, employment, foreign exchange, welfare, and poverty; and their links to consumption and investment. On poverty, two opposing views persist. The optimistic view holds that remittances reduce poverty by increasing incomes; supporting greater investment in physical assets, education, and health; and enabling access to a larger pool of knowledge. In contrast, the negative view observes that poor households have limited access to migrant labor markets due to liquidity constraints, as well as high transport and entry costs of migration. If migration is costly and risky, migrants may come from the middle or upper segments of the rural income distribution rather than from the poorest households. This study thus examines the impact of international remittances on poverty reduction in selected developing economies. It also examines whether human capital is a channel through which remittances can reduce poverty. The study employs dynamic panel techniques to estimate the results and address methodological issues of endogeneity and test for robustness. The study also uses three poverty indicators—(a)poverty headcount, (b) poverty gap, and (c) poverty severity—across three international poverty lines (US$3.00, US$4.20, and US$8.30) to capture the prevalence, depth, and intensity of poverty in the sample and to test for robustness. The results show that remittances are significant in reducing poverty using these different poverty measures. The findings also show that education, as proxy for human capital, has a moderating effect on remittances in reducing poverty. |
| JEL: | F24 I32 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bhd:dpaper:202518 |