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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Ziesemer, Thomas (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | In regressions for net immigration flows of developing countries we show that (i) savings finance emigration and worker remittances serve to make staying rather than migrating possible until a certain value, beyond which the opposite holds; (ii) lagged dependent migration flows have a negative sign even in the presence of migration stock variables; (iii) migration stocks have S-shaped effects: at sufficiently low values higher migration stocks support emigration; beyond a threshold value they support net immigration before they possibly support emigration again after a second threshold value. |
| Keywords: | migration, remittances |
| JEL: | F22 O15 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2009007&r=mig |
| By: | Banerjee, Rupa; Verma, Anil |
| Abstract: | This study investigates post-migration educational investment among newly arrived immigrants and examines the effect of post-migration education on new immigrants’ labour market integration, as measured by earnings and occupational status. The results indicate that younger immigrants who are already well educated, fluent in English or French and worked in a professional or managerial occupation prior to migration are most likely to enroll in Canadian education. But, acceptance of previous work experience by Canadian employers lowers the likelihood of enrolling in further education. Financial capital was not found to affect participation in post-migration education. Those immigrants who did enroll in post-migration education enjoyed an earnings advantage and were more likely to work in a professional or managerial job. The effect of post-migration education was greater for immigrants whose previous work experience was not accepted in Canada. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant Workers, Education, Wages |
| JEL: | J61 J31 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–03–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-20&r=mig |
| By: | Abbott, Michael; Beach, Charles M. |
| Abstract: | This paper provides preliminary results from the IMDB panel database on the earnings distribution and earnings mobility of Canadian immigrants over their first post-landing decade in Canada. In this study we examine only the 1982 landing cohort of immigrants and follow them through to 1992. We examine earnings outcomes by four immigrant admission categories (independent economic immigrants, family class immigrants, and refugees) and separately for men and women. We find that there was indeed a substantial increase in the real earnings of 1982 immigrants over their first ten post-landing years in Canada. Annual earnings were initially highest for independent economic immigrants (all of whom are principal applicants) and lowest for refugees. But the growth rate of earnings was highest among refugees, so that by the tenth post-landing year refugees had the second-highest annual earnings levels after independent economic immigrants. Earnings inequality among immigrants in the 1982 landing cohort changed over the ensuing decade in a manner consistent with onward migration beyond Canada from the top end of the immigrant earnings distribution. In fact, sample attrition in the IMDB database was greatest among independent economic immigrants, followed by refugees. Earnings mobility was substantially greater for immigrants than for earners as a whole in the Canadian labour market, and declined with years since landing for both male and female immigrants. Earnings mobility was also greater among immigrant women than among immigrant men. The results indicate that the point system is effective in admitting higher-earning immigrants who succeed in moving ahead in the Canadian labour market, but suggest that onward (or through) migration among the most skilled immigrant workers may be a policy concern. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant Earnings, Earnings Mobility of Immigrants, Canadian Immigrant Earnings |
| JEL: | J61 J68 J18 |
| Date: | 2009–03–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-22&r=mig |
| By: | Matloob Piracha; Florin Vadean |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of return migration on the Albanian economy by analysing the occupational choice of return migrants while explicitly differentiating between self-employment as either own account work or entrepreneurship. After taking into account the possible sample selection into return migration, we find that the own account workers have characteristics closer to non-participants in the labour market (i.e. lower education levels), while entrepreneurship is positively related to schooling, foreign language proficiency and savings accumulated abroad. Furthermore, compared to having not migrated, return migrants are significantly more likely not to participate in the labour market or to be entrepreneurs. However, after a one year re-integration period, the effect on non participation vanishes and that on entrepreneurship becomes stronger. As for non-migrants, the migration experience would have increased their probability to be entrepreneurs showing the positive impact of migration on job creating activities in Albania. |
| Keywords: | Occupational Choice; Return Migration; Sample Selection |
| JEL: | C35 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0905&r=mig |
| By: | Pouliakas, Konstantinos; Roberts, Deborah; Balamou, Eudokia; Psaltopoulos, Dimitris |
| Abstract: | The paper uses a regional Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to analyse the effects of immigration on three small remote EU regions located within Scotland, Greece and Latvia. Two migration scenarios are assessed. In the first, total labour supply is affected. In the second, the importance of migratory flows by differential labour skill types is investigated. The results indicate significant differences in the extent to which regional economies are affected by immigration. They also suggest that remote regions are highly vulnerable to the out-migration of skilled workers (‘brain-drain’) while the in-migration of unskilled workers leads to widening wage inequality. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; CGE; Skills; Wage Inequality; Brain-drain; Regional economies |
| JEL: | R13 D33 D58 R23 |
| Date: | 2008–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14157&r=mig |
| By: | Kucera, Miroslav |
| Abstract: | Using data from the 2001 General Social Survey, this study focused on differences in educational attainment between the children of immigrants to Canada, referred to as second-generation immigrants, and similarly-aged children of Canadian-born parents. Two definitions of second-generation immigrants were introduced. The first considered a Canadian resident with at least one immigrant parent to be a second-generation immigrant, while the second definition required that both parents were foreign-born. All first-generation immigrants were excluded from the sample, except those who had arrived in Canada at the age of 9 or younger; these young immigrants were then included among the second-generation immigrants. The results show that second-generation immigrants did better in terms of schooling attainment than their peers born to Canadian parents. Although a part of the observed difference was explained by differences in individual characteristics, a significant disparity remained even after controlling for them. Moreover, the main result of the children of immigrants being, on average, more educated than the children of the Canadianborn was robust towards different definitions of second-generation immigrants, and held for both men and women. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment; second-generation immigrants |
| JEL: | J62 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14036&r=mig |
| By: | Dramane Coulibaly (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the macroeconomic determinants of migrants' remittances cycles. The study uses panel VAR methods in order to compensate for both data limitations and endogeneity among variables. The analysis considers annual data for 16 latin and Caribbean countries. By using these data I compute variance decompositions (VDCs) and impulse response functions (IRFs). The VDCs show that the forecast error variance of remittances is explained by host country GDP, home country GDP and the differential of interest rates between home and host countries. The IRFs analysis confirms these findings. First, the IRFs show that remittances respond positively to boom in host country. Second, for altruistic motivations, a recession in home country is accompanied by a increase in remittances inflows. The last result, related to self-interested motivations, is the increase in remittances inflows following a rise in the differential of interest rates between home and host countries. |
| Keywords: | International migration, remittances, business cycles. |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00367704_v1&r=mig |
| By: | Pia M. Orrenius; Madeline Zavodny |
| Abstract: | Recent media and government reports suggest that immigrants are more likely to hold jobs with worse working conditions than U.S.-born workers, perhaps because immigrants work in jobs that "natives don?t want." Despite this widespread view, earlier studies have not found immigrants to be in riskier jobs than natives. This study combines individual-level data from the 2003?2005 American Community Survey with Bureau of Labor Statistics data on work-related injuries and fatalities to take a fresh look at whether foreign-born workers are employed in more dangerous jobs. The results indicate that immigrants are in fact more likely to work in risky jobs than U.S.-born workers, partly due to differences in average characteristics, such as immigrants' lower English language ability and educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants ; Human capital ; Labor economics |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:0901&r=mig |
| By: | Chi Man Ng (The Open University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | This article considers how technological growth affects country interconnectivity, particularly in the form of labor migration. It shows that technological growth brings a positive effect on migration stock as well as net migration. In addition, the technological growth effect is endorsed by negative relationship between refugee population and information technological advancement. Policy recommendation will be presented regarding the brain drain and refugee population problem.This paper was presented at the 18th International Conference of the International Trade and Finance Association, meeting at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, on May 23, 2008. |
| Date: | 2008–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:itfapp:1106&r=mig |
| By: | Martin Daniel Siyaranamual (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | To address the surprising lack of research in the area of environmental migration, this paper reviews the existing literature and proposes two basic, two region, and general equilibrium models: a closed economy and a small open economy where migration occurs between regions. The models show that migration increases welfare in the rural region, characterized by a tragedy of the commons production function, but does not affect welfare in the region with a constant returns to scale production function. The paper also provides an economic definition of an environmental refugee in the respect of an environmental migrant. |
| Keywords: | environmental migrant |
| JEL: | Q10 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:200901&r=mig |
| By: | Caroline, Bennett-AbuAyyash; Dietz, Joerg; Esses, Victoria M.; Joshi, Chetan |
| Abstract: | Theories of subtle prejudice imply that personnel decision makers might inadvertently discriminate against immigrant employees, in particular immigrant employees form racial minority groups. The argument is that the ambiguities that are associated with immigrant status (e.g., quality of foreign credentials) release latent biases against minorities. Hence, upon removal of these ambiguities (e.g., recognition of foreign credentials as equivalent to local credentials), discrimination against immigrant employees from minority groups should no longer occur. Experimental research largely confirmed these arguments, showing that participants evaluated the credentials of black immigrant employees less favorably only when the participants harbored latent racial biases and the foreign credentials of the applicants had not been accredited. The results suggest the importance of the official recognition of foreign credentials for the fair treatment of immigrant employees. |
| Keywords: | Labour Discrimination, Immigrants, Racial Minorities, Prejudice, Credential Recognition, Experiment |
| JEL: | J71 |
| Date: | 2009–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-27&r=mig |
| By: | Ceren Ozgen (VU University Amsterdam); Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam); Jacques Poot (Population Studies Centre, University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | Using meta-analytical techniques, we focus on 11 studies that explicitly measure the effect of a net migration variable in neoclassical convergence models and derive 57 comparable effect sizes. The data suggest that an increase in the net migration rate of one percentage point increases on average the GDP per capita growth rate by 0.13 percent, thus suggesting a net migration impact that is more consistent with endogenous self-reinforcing growth rather than neoclassical convergence. However, studies that use panel models or IV estimation yield smaller coefficients of net migration while the opposite is the case for regressions controlling for high-skilled migration. |
| Keywords: | Internal migration; income convergence; meta-analysis; regional disparities |
| JEL: | O15 O18 R23 R11 |
| Date: | 2009–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20090022&r=mig |
| By: | George J. Borjas |
| Abstract: | The theory of factor demand has important implications for the study of the impact of immigration on wages in both sending and receiving countries. This paper examines the implications of the theory in the context of a model of a competitive labor market where the wage impact of immigration is influenced by such factors as the elasticity of product demand, the rate at which the consumer base expands as immigrants enter the country, the elasticity of supply of capital, and the elasticity of substitution across inputs of production. The analysis reveals that the short-run wage effect of immigration is negative in a wide array of possible scenarios, and that even the long run effect of immigration may be negative if the impact of immigration on the potential size of the consumer base is smaller than its impact on the size of the workforce. The closed-form solutions permit numerical back-of-the-envelope calculations of the wage elasticity. The constraints imposed by the theory can be used to check the plausibility of the many contradictory claims that appear throughout the immigration literature. |
| JEL: | J23 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14796&r=mig |
| By: | Geys, Benny; Konrad, Kai A; Qari, Salmai |
| Abstract: | For patriotic citizens, living in their native country is intrinsically preferable compared to living in the diaspora. In this paper, we analyze the implications of such a patriotic lock-in in a world with international migration and redistributive taxation. In a formal model of redistribution with international migration and fiscal competition we derive the main hypothesis: that countries with a more patriotic population should have higher redistributive taxes. Using ISSP survey data and combining them with OECD taxation data, we find robust evidence suggesting that a) higher patriotism is associated with higher tax burdens, and b) this relation is stronger for the upper-middle range of the income distribution. |
| Keywords: | fiscal competition; international mobility; patriotism; redistribution; taxation |
| JEL: | H20 H73 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7216&r=mig |
| By: | Rasyad A. Parinduri (Nottingham University Business School - Malaysia Campus); Shandre M. Thangavelu (Department of Economics, National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of remittances on the migrant households consumption and saving patterns as well as their living standard using the Indonesia Family Life Survey data. Using matching - and difference-in-differences matching estimators, we find that remittances seem to change the household consumption patterns. However, we do not find strong evidence that indicates remittances improve these households' living standard. Moreover, it seems that remittance households do not enjoy better education or healthcare, which suggests that remittances may not play an important role in speeding up economic development through these two means. If anything, we show that remittance households manage to invest some of their income in the traditional forms of investment such as in house and jewelry (i.e., gold). |
| Keywords: | Remittances; Matching estimator |
| JEL: | D64 D82 F22 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nom:nubsmc:2008-02&r=mig |
| By: | Andersson Joona, Pernilla (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS); Nekby, Lena (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS) |
| Abstract: | A Trial Introduction Program (TIP) for newly-arrived immigrants to Sweden was implemented from October 2006 to June 2008 in order to meet the main criticisms directed at existing introduction programs. Two primary innovations were introduced, flexible language instruction parallel with other labor market activities at the Public Employment Service (PES) and intensive counseling and coaching by PES caseworkers with considerably reduced caseloads. Within participating municipalities, newly-arrived immigrants were randomly assigned into TIP (treatment) or regular introduction programs (control). Results indicate significant treatment effects on the probability of attaining regular employment as well as the probability of entering intermediate PES training programs. Hazard rates into PES training programs were also significantly higher for participants in TIP in comparison to participants in regular introduction programs. |
| Keywords: | Labor Market Policy Evaluation; Integration; Introduction Programs; Experiments |
| JEL: | C41 J15 J61 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2009–03–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2009_005&r=mig |
| By: | Kenneth Harttgen (University of Göttingen / Germany); Stephan Klasen (University of Göttingen / Germany) |
| Date: | 2009–03–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:181&r=mig |
| By: | Chulhee Lee |
| Abstract: | This study estimates the labor force participation rate (LFPR) of older males in Korea from 1955 to 2005, and analyzes the effects of several determining factors on labor force participation decisions at older ages. The LFPR of older men increased substantially from the mid-1960s to the late-1990s. This pattern is in sharp contrast to the historical experiences of most OECD countries, where the LFPR of older males declined rapidly over the last century. The rise in the LFPR of older males in Korea between 1965 and 1995 is largely explained by the dramatic increase in the labor-market activity of the rural elderly population. The results of regression analyses suggest that the acceleration of population aging in rural areas due to the selective out-migration of younger persons was the major cause of the sharp increase in the LFPR of older males. It is likely that the relative decline of the rural economy in the course of industrialization made it increasingly difficult for the rural elderly population to save for retirement. |
| JEL: | J26 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14800&r=mig |
| By: | Ana María Ibáñez (Department of Economics, Universidad de los Andes); Andrés Moya (University of Wisconsin, Madison) |
| Abstract: | Internal conflicts entail large asset losses for certain segments in the civilian population. Asset losses may compromise the future welfare of households, thus leaving a legacy of structural poverty that is difficult to overcome. The purpose of this article is to analyze how asset losses occur during internal conflicts and the process of asset accumulation following the initial shock. To do this, we concentrate on a particularly vulnerable group of victims of war—the displaced population in Colombia. In achieving our objective, we adopt quantitative and qualitative approaches by: (i) providing a detailed description of losses stemming from forced displacement; (ii) analyzing qualitative evidence so as to understand the asset recovery processes for the displaced population; and (iii) estimating OLS, Instrumental Variable and quartile regressions in order to identify the determinants of asset losses stemming from forced displacement, and asset accumulation following the initial shock. The results indicate that recuperating asset losses or accumulating new assets is a rare event; only 25 percent of households are able to recover their original asset base, while asset ownership still seems insufficient for overcoming poverty. In addition, displaced households do not catch up even as settlement at destination sites consolidates. Therefore, unless a positive intervention is implemented, displaced households become locked in a low income trajectory, and are unlikely to leap forward to a high return asset level. |
| Keywords: | Forced migration, civil conflict, asset losses, structural poverty, quantile regressions |
| JEL: | D74 N46 I32 R23 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcn:rwpapr:10&r=mig |