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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes; Kusum Mundra |
| Abstract: | A significant homeownership gap still remains between natives and immigrants in most countries. Because of the many advantages of homeownership for immigrants and for the communities where immigrants reside, a variety of countries have tried to implement policies that facilitate immigrant homeownership. Many of these policies hinge on immigrants’ legal status. Yet, owing to data limitations, we still know very little about its impact on immigrant homeownership. We address this gap in the literature and find that legalization raises immigrant homeownership by 20 percentage-points even after accounting for a wide range of individual and family characteristics known to impact housing ownership. This finding underscores the importance of legal status in immigrant assimilation –housing being an important indicator of immigrant adaptation, and the need for further explorations of the impact of amnesties on the housing markets of immigrant-receiving economies. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Housing, Legal Status, Spain |
| JEL: | J1 J61 R0 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:run:wpaper:2010-005&r=mig |
| By: | Constant, Amelie F. (DIW DC, George Washington University); Tien, Bienvenue (DIW DC) |
| Abstract: | Leaders are critical to a country’s success. They can influence domestic policy via specific measures that they enforce, and they can also influence international public opinion towards their country. Foreign Direct Investments are also essential for a country’s economic growth. Our hypothesis is that foreign-educated leaders attract more FDI to their country. Our rationale is that education obtained abroad encompasses a whole slew of factors that can make a difference in FDI flows when this foreign-educated individual becomes a leader. We test this hypothesis empirically with a unique dataset that we constructed from several sources, including the Library of Congress and the World Bank. Our analysis of 40 African countries employs the robust technique of conditional quantile regression. Our results reveal that foreign education is a significant determinant of FDI inflows, beyond other standard characteristics. While intuitive, this result does not necessarily indicate sheepskin effects or superior human capital obtained abroad. Rather, it indicates the powerful role of the social capital, networks, and connections that these leaders built while they were abroad that they in turn mobilize and utilize when they become leaders. |
| Keywords: | FDI, leaders' educational level, return migration, Africa |
| JEL: | C31 C33 F21 I21 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5353&r=mig |
| By: | Åslund, Olof (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Edin, Per-Anders (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Fredriksson, Peter (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Grönqvist, Hans (SOFI) |
| Abstract: | We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee place¬ment policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject’s ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of high-educated in the assigned neighborhood raises compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. Particularly for disadvantaged groups, there are also long-run effects on educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects; Ethnic enclaves; Immigration; School performance |
| JEL: | I20 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2010–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2010_018&r=mig |
| By: | Marcel Gerard (FuCAm, UCLouvain) |
| Abstract: | The current system for financing cross-border students, based on the host country, is neither sustainable nor efficient: it produces too little cross-border education. On that background, and motivated as well by a recent decision of the European Court of Justice, we explore two alternative solutions. the first one substitutes to the financing by the host country, a financing by the country of origin, through vouchers that the student may use at home or abroad provided it is in a recognized institution. The second one, potentially an efficient design, combines that substitution with a reimbursement of education costs through interjurisdictional transfers or the change of vouchers into contingent loans |
| Keywords: | Bologna process, Higher Education, Contingent loan, Bhagwati tax |
| JEL: | I22 I23 H77 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tax:taxpap:0026&r=mig |
| By: | Reyn van Ewijk (VU University Amsterdam, and Netspar) |
| Abstract: | Previous research shows that ethnic minority students perform poorer in school when they are taught by ethnic majority teachers. Why this is the case was unclear. This paper focuses on one important potential explanation: I examine whether ethnic majority teachers grade minority and majority students differently for the same work. Using an experiment, I rule out the existence of such a direct grading bias. I do find indirect evidence for alternative explanations: teachers report lower expectations and unfavorable attitudes that both likely affect their behavior towards minority students, potentially inducing them to perform below their ability level. Effects of having majority teachers on minority students' grades hence seem more likely to be indirect than direct. |
| Keywords: | Ethnicity; Discrimination; Grading; Experiment |
| JEL: | I2 J15 |
| Date: | 2010–12–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20100127&r=mig |
| By: | DELPIERRE Matthieu; VERHEYDEN Bertrand |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a theory of migrants’ decisions to remit and save under uncertainty in connection with future location decisions. We show that the impact of remittances on the risk faced by the migrant is more complex than usually acknowledged. On the one hand, their effect on aggregate risk is non-monotonic. On the other hand, their impact on the geographical location of risk might be counter-intuitive, as remittances increase the migrant’s exposure to risk in the origin country. Also, marginal returns to remittances may be increasing, at least locally, due to the endogeneity of the future location. Interior solutions are therefore not guaranteed, and liquidity constraints faced by migrants may be binding. Finally, undocumented migrants are shown to be more likely to remit than legal migrants. |
| Keywords: | return migration; remittances; risk; investment |
| JEL: | D13 D80 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2010-39&r=mig |
| By: | Orrenius, Pia M. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas); Zavodny, Madeline (Agnes Scott College) |
| Abstract: | Immigrants have figured prominently in U.S. economic growth for decades, but the recent recession hit them hard. Immigrants’ labor market outcomes began deteriorating even before the recession was officially underway, largely as a result of the housing bust. An analysis of employment and unemployment rates over the past 15 years shows that immigrants' labor market outcomes are more cyclical than those of natives. The greater cyclicality of immigrants' employment and unemployment is concentrated among less-educated immigrants, but college-educated immigrants nonetheless have more cyclically-sensitive employment outcomes than college-educated natives. |
| Keywords: | business cycle, recession, employment, immigrants |
| JEL: | J21 J61 J64 E32 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5354&r=mig |
| By: | A. Arrighetti; A. Lasagni |
| Abstract: | This work is aimed to investigate factors affecting the decision to remit and to study the motives to employ remittances for investment purposes. To contribute to the discussion on these issues, we decided to integrate the current interpretative framework with new variables which are able to capture not only the migrant’s ties with family members but also those with non-household community members and the role of migration process. The extension of the interpretative model has allowed us to better understand the destination of remittances, but results are also useful to refine the interpretation of determinants monetary transfers by migrants. |
| Keywords: | remittances, migration |
| JEL: | F22 F24 J61 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:par:dipeco:2010-ep05&r=mig |