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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Ahmet Ali Taskin |
| Abstract: | I analyze the interstate migration patterns of families and the effect of labor force attachment of women on joint migration decisions. I show that as the earned income of spouses become similar, the probability of migration falls substantially. This observation is robust in the sense that 1) it holds after controlling for a rich set of factors that are strongly correlated with relative income, 2) it yields qualitatively similar results when I model the incidence of attrition as another exit, 3) it consistently disappears for the shorter distance moves. I also find that the negative relationship between income similarity of couples and interstate migration is especially strong for couples with similar labor market characteristics beyond income levels. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p1219&r=mig |
| By: | Kibriya, Shahriar; Xu, Zhicheng; Ghimire, Narishwar |
| Abstract: | This article is a unique attempt to discover the impact of exile on the most basic human necessity, food entitlement. We argue that exile from society followed by reintegration attempts cause mental and physical trauma, emotional distress, cultural shock, depletion of technical skills, political oppression, loss of social cohesion and articulation. We use survey data randomized on levels of conflict and propensity of migration from 312 rural households in 22 Liberian villages from Loma, Nimba, and Grand Bassa counties. Our findings suggest that accounting for household demographics, farm size, attributes, and income; duration of exile increases the probability of food entitlement failure. |
| Keywords: | Food entitlement; Exile; Migration; Conflict; Social reintegration |
| JEL: | R22 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:60190&r=mig |
| By: | Verdugo, Gregory (Bank of France) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how a reform allowing immigrants with children in France access to public housing during the 1970s influenced their initial location choices across local labour markets. We find that cities with higher public housing supplies have a large 'magnetic effect' on the location choice. The estimated effect is substantial and quantitatively similar to the effect of the size of the ethnic group in the urban area. In cities with higher public housing supply, these immigrants tend to benefit from better housing conditions, but non-European immigrants are also more likely to be unemployed. |
| Keywords: | public housing, social housing, immigration, location choice |
| JEL: | J15 R50 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8629&r=mig |
| By: | Facchini, Giovanni; Patacchini, Eleonora; Steinhardt, Max |
| Abstract: | In this paper we contribute to the analysis of the assimilation process of migrants by analyzing the extent to which friendship with natives can be seen as a measure of cultural assimilation and investigating the formation of social ties in the host country. Using novel information from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we find that migrants with a German friend are more similar to natives than those without a local companion along several important dimensions, including concerns about the economy, interest in politics and broad policy issues like the environment, crime, and xenophobia. When looking at the determinants of friendship acquisition, we find that becoming employed is a significant driver of social network variation. Other factors affecting ties with the native population include the number of years the migrant has spent in the country, the birth of a child, residential mobility and additional education in the host country. |
| Keywords: | Culture; Ethnic minorities; Friendship Formation; Migration |
| JEL: | A14 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10032&r=mig |
| By: | Nunziata, Luca (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the increase in immigration flows into western European countries that took place in the 2000s to assess whether immigration affects crime victimization and the perception of criminality among European natives. Using data from the European Social Survey, the Labour Force Survey and other sources, we provide a set of fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations that deal with the endogenous sorting of immigration by region and with the sampling error in survey based measures of regional immigration shares, whose implications in terms of attenuation bias are investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Our empirical findings show that an increase in immigration does not affect crime victimization, but it is associated with an increase in the fear of crime, the latter being consistently and positively correlated with the natives' unfavourable attitude toward immigrants. Our results reveal a misconception of the link between immigration and crime among European natives. |
| Keywords: | crime, migration, victimization, perception, fear |
| JEL: | J15 J61 K42 F22 R23 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8632&r=mig |
| By: | Bijwaard, Govert (NIDI - Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines immigrant wage growth taking into account selective out-migration using administrative data from the Netherlands. We also take into account the potential endogeneity of the immigrants' labor supply and their out-migration decisions on their earning profiles using a correlated competing risk model, but we also use standard estimations as done in previous literature. We distinguish between two types of migrants: labor and family migrants given their different labor market and out-migration behavior. We find that simple models lead to biased estimates of the wage growth of immigrants. Controlling for the selective out-migration and endogeneity of labor supply, we find that labor out-migrants are positively selected but family out-migrants are negatively selected. Furthermore, the findings underscore the importance of taking into account the endogeneity of labor supply and out-migration when estimating immigrants' wage growth. |
| Keywords: | migration dynamics, labor market transitions, competing risks, immigrant assimilation, income growth |
| JEL: | F22 J61 C41 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8627&r=mig |
| By: | Rémi BAZILLIER; Cristina TRANDAS-BOBOC; Oana CALAVREZO |
| Keywords: | , labour market, vulnerability, migration, Europe |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:leo:wpaper:1825&r=mig |
| By: | Djajic, Slobodan; Mesnard, Alice |
| Abstract: | Guest-worker programs have been providing rapidly growing economies with millions of temporary foreign workers over the last couple of decades. With the duration of stay strictly limited by program rules in most of the host countries and wages paid to guest workers often set at sub-market levels, many of the migrants choose to overstay and seek employment in the underground economy. This paper develops a general-equilibrium model that relates the flow of guest workers transiting to the underground economy to the rules of the program, enforcement measures of the host country and market conditions facing migrants at home and abroad. |
| Keywords: | temporary migration; underground economy; undocumented workers |
| JEL: | F22 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10074&r=mig |
| By: | Martin, Philip; Abella, Manolo |
| Abstract: | The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is moving towards closer economic integration among its Member States, including the free mobility of professionals and highly skilled workers. The freer flow of goods and capital will place path dependence, which encourages firms that already hire migrant workers to expand, in competition with wage convergence, which will reduce incentives for international labour migration. Most current AEC migrants are low skilled and most new migrants are likely to be low skilled. Governments need to acknowledge this reality and develop policies to liberalize and regularize the cross-border movements of labour. They cause mutual recognition agreements to promote the movement of professionals, and regulate the recruitment and employment of migrant workers, to ensure that migrant and local workers are treated equally. Demographic and economic realities suggest international labour migration within the AEC will increase making the implementation of the 2007 ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers imperative, to ensure that labour migration promotes cooperation rather than conflict between AEC Member States. |
| Keywords: | labour market, labour mobility, migrant worker, workers rights, social security, interindustry shift, trade agreement, economic implication, economic integration, regional cooperation, ASEAN countries, marché du travail, mobilité de la main-d'oeuvre, travailleur migrant, droits des travailleurs, sécurité sociale, mutation interindustrielle, accord commercial, conséquences économiques, intégration économique, coopération régionale, pays de l'ANASE, mercado de trabajo, movilidad de la mano de obra, trabajador migrante, derechos de los trabajadores, seguridad social, desplazamiento industrial, convenio comercial, consecuencias económicas, integración económica, cooperación regional, países del ASEAN |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:486521&r=mig |
| By: | Michał BURZYŃSKI (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), FRS-FNRS and Poznan University of Economics, KEM) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the welfare consequences of liberalizing migration and trade between the OECD countries. The key findings are that the aggregate welfare gains from zeroing the trade barriers in OECD are moderate (+ 1,5% in real GDP), whereas the impact of reducing the barriers for migration in OECD is substantially more pronounced (+ 2,0% in real GDP). Removing trade barriers is beneficial for every country in our sample (especially for the less integrated economies), whereas eliminating migration barriers provides positive outcomes for only a few destinations and increases the between and within-country inequality. Consequently, liberalizations of trade and migration have similar implications for aggregate welfare, but very different distributive effects across the OECD countries. Furthermore, we consider bilateral liberalization scenarios between the EU and the US as well as between the EU and Turkey, which are of major importance in the current political debates. As a by-product of our numerical experiments, we examine the relations between trade and migration, concluding that their sign and magnitude extensively depend on the type of shock imposed in a general equilibrium system. |
| Keywords: | migration, international trade, computational general equilibrium, liberalization |
| JEL: | C68 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2014–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2014022&r=mig |
| By: | Liu, Xingfei (IZA) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I analyze educational outcomes for second generation immigrants and compare them to those of natives. I use a dynamic structural model and focus on transition paths from school to work for youths in Canada and the U.S. Using data extracted from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the 2000 Youth in Transition Survey, I find that family background is closely related to educational attainment of white children of immigrants in both countries. Moreover, cognitive abilities seem to be more important in determining youths' educational attainment in the U.S. than in Canada. However, I find no evidence suggesting that the effects of key family environment variables on educational attainment differ between children of immigrants and children of natives. Results from counterfactual simulations suggest that incentive-based educational reforms, such as providing educational subsidies to reduce the costs of secondary and post-secondary education, are more effective in increasing overall educational attainment for both groups. In addition, the desired dollar amount of these educational subsidies are smaller in Canada than in the U.S. On the other hand, immigration policies designed to admit only highly educated individuals have modest effects on educational attainment of second generation immigrants. Finally, there is very little difference in educational outcomes between the two groups in Canada and the U.S. despite very different immigration policies, at least for the ethnic group (whites) considered in this paper. |
| Keywords: | second-generation immigrants, educational attainment, counterfactual-simulation, dynamic structural model, U.S.-Canada comparison |
| JEL: | I21 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8685&r=mig |
| By: | Helmut Hofer; Gerlinde Titelbach; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses wage discrimination against immigrants in Austria using combined information from the labor force surveys and administrative social security data. We find that immigrants experience a wage disadvantage of 15 percentage points compared to natives. However, a substantial part of the wage gap can be explained by differences in human capital endowment and job position. Decomposition methods using quantile regressions show larger discrimination in the upper part of the wage distribution. Moreover, we do not find any evidence for wage assimilation of immigrants in Austria. |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2014_07&r=mig |
| By: | Mannan, Kazi Abdul; Farhana, Khandaker Mursheda |
| Abstract: | The present study investigates the investment variation of remittance determinants in rural area at the origin. Using micro-economic data from a survey conducted in 2013, multivariate analysis was carried out on 300 rural households. The empirical results show that the significance level and determinants vary from the investment in financial sector and specially investment in share market. Investment in financial sectors is strongly significance with the household remittances, educational level of migrants and household heads, household head relation to migrant and income of the household. On the other hand, investment in share market is highly significant with the duration of migration, marital status and employment status of the household head; and religion and income of the household. |
| Keywords: | capital market, remittances, investment, rural household, non-residence |
| JEL: | D0 D00 E6 E66 |
| Date: | 2014–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:60309&r=mig |
| By: | TIIU PAAS |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to outline differences in the socio-demographic and employment characteristics of Estonian people who have worked in a neighbouring country ? Finland, Sweden, Latvia or Russia. The empirical part of this paper relies on data from CV Keskus ? an online employment portal bringing together jobseekers and vacant job posts. The results of our analysis show that different destination regions ? the wealthier countries of Finland and Sweden (referred to as East-West mobility) and Latvia and Russia (referred to as East-East mobility) have attracted workers with different personal and job-related characteristics. Ethnicity and higher education are important determinants in explaining differences between East-West and East-East labour flows. Non-Estonians and people with a higher education have been less likely to work in Finland or Sweden (East-West mobility). |
| Keywords: | international labour mobility; cross-border labour flows; East-West and East-East labour migration; Estonia |
| JEL: | J61 O57 R P52 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p50&r=mig |
| By: | Jacques Thisse; Takatoshi Tabuchi; Xiwei Zhu |
| Abstract: | New economic geography focuses on the impact of falling transport costs on the spatial distribution of activities. However, it disregards the role of technological innovations, which are central to modern economic growth, as well as the role of migration costs, which are a strong impediment to moving. We show that this neglect is unwarranted. Regardless of the level of transport costs, rising labor productivity fosters the agglomeration of activities, whereas falling transport costs do not affect the location of activities. When labor is heterogeneous, the number of workers residing in the more productive region increases by decreasing order of productive efficiency when labor productivity rises. |
| Keywords: | new economic geography; technological progress; labor productivity; migration costs; labor heterogeneity. Classifcation: |
| JEL: | J61 R12 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p276&r=mig |
| By: | Tiiu Paas (University of Tartu); Mart Kaska (University of Tartu, Estonia) |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses on examining cross-border labour mobility between the neighbouring countries looking for the answer to the question whether cross-border labour mobility can pursue win-win expectations of increasing international labour movement after the EU eastward enlargement. The aim of the paper is to outline differences in the socio-demographic and employment characteristics of Estonian people who have worked in a neighbouring country – Finland and Sweden (East-West mobility) and Latvia or Russia (East-East mobility). The results of the study show that the possible consequences of cross-border labour mobility are twofold. Cross-border labour mobility can support economic development of both source and target country but also generate some threats of brain waste taking into account the sharp increase of lower-skilled jobs of people who are working in economically well-developed neighbouring countries. |
| Keywords: | geographic labour mobility, neighbouring countries, cross-country labour flows, East-West and East-East mobility, Estonia |
| JEL: | J61 O57 R23 P52 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cst:wpaper:2&r=mig |
| By: | Ghosh, Anirban (Georgetown University); Mayda, Anna Maria (Georgetown University); Ortega, Francesc (Queens College, CUNY) |
| Abstract: | Many U.S. businessmen are vocally in favor of an increase in the number of H-1B visas. Is there systematic evidence that this would positively affect firms' productivity, sales, employment or profits? To address these questions we assemble a unique dataset that matches all labor condition applications (LCAs) – the first step towards H-1B visas for skilled foreign-born workers in the U.S. – with firm-level data on publicly traded U.S. firms (from Compustat). Our identification is based on the sharp reduction in the annual H-1B cap that took place in 2004, combined with information on the degree of dependency on H-1B visas at the firm level as in Kerr and Lincoln (2010). The main result of this paper is that if the cap on H-1B visas were relaxed, a subset of firms would experience gains in average labor productivity, firm size, and profits. These are firms that conduct R&D and are heavy users of H-1B workers – they belong to the top quintile among filers of LCAs. These empirical findings are consistent with a heterogeneous-firms model where innovation enhances productivity and is subject to fixed costs. |
| Keywords: | immigration, skills, productivity, visas, R&D |
| JEL: | F22 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8684&r=mig |
| By: | Tanika Chakraborty; Olga Nottmeyer; Simone Schüller; Klaus F. Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | Estimating the effect of ‘ethnic capital’ on human capital investment decisions is complicated by the endogeneity of location choice of immigrants and the reflection problem. We exploit a rare immigrant settlement policy in Germany to identify the causal impact of parental peer-heterogeneity on the educational outcomes of their children. To identify the direction of peer effect we restrict to no-child-adult-peers who completed their education much before the children in our sample of interest. We find that children of low-educated parents benefit significantly from the presence of high-educated neighbors, with more pronounced effects in more polarized neighborhoods and significant gender heterogeneity. In contrast, we do not find any negative influence coming from the low-educated neighbors. Our estimates are robust to a range of flexible peer definitions. Overall, the findings suggest an increase in parental aspirations as the possible mechanism rather than a direct child-to-child peer effect. |
| Keywords: | Education, Ethnic Capital, Germany, Immigrant, Peer Effects, Policy Experiment |
| JEL: | R23 J15 I21 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fbk:wpaper:2014-10&r=mig |