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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Sin, Isabelle (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust); Stillman, Steven (University of Otago) |
| Abstract: | Between 1984 and 2003, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use Census data to examine how the internal mobility of Māori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in the period after these reforms. It is often suggested that Māori are less mobile than other ethnic groups because of attachment to particular geographical locations. If this were the case, Māori may have been disadvantaged in the post-reform period because they were more likely to be living in adversely affected areas and less likely to move to pursue better employment opportunities. In contrast to the anecdotal evidence, we find that Māori are more mobile on average than similar Europeans. However, Māori who live in areas with strong networks of their iwi are slightly less mobile than Europeans. The difference between Māori who live locally to their iwi and those who do not is even more pronounced when we consider responsiveness to local labour market shocks. Non-local Māori are considerably more responsive to changes in economic opportunities than are Europeans, whereas local Māori are almost entirely unresponsive. |
| Keywords: | mobility, migration, New Zealand, Māori, labour market areas |
| JEL: | J61 J15 R23 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8883&r=mig |
| By: | Ufuk Akcigit (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and NBER); Salomé Baslandze (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania); Stefanie Stantcheva (Department of Economics, Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of top tax rates on inventors' mobility since 1977. We put special emphasis on”superstar" inventors, those with the most and most valuable patents. We use panel data on inventors from the United States and European Patent Offices to track inventors' locations over time and combine it with international effective top tax rate data. We construct a detailed set of proxies for inventors' counterfactual incomes in each possible destination country including, among others, measures of patent quality and technological fit with each potential destination. We find that superstar top 1% inventors are significantly affected by top tax rates when deciding where to locate. The elasticity of the number of domestic inventors to the net-of-tax rate is relatively small, between 0.04 and 0.06, while the elasticity of the number of foreign inventors is much larger, around 1.3. The elasticities to top net-of-tax rates decline as one moves down the quality distribution of inventors. Inventors who work in multinational companies are more likely to take advantage of tax differentials. On the other hand, if the company of an inventor has a higher share of its research activity in a given country, the inventor is less sensitive to the tax rate in that country. |
| Keywords: | Taxation, Migration, International Mobility, Superstars, Innovation, Patents, Invention Patents, Invention. |
| JEL: | F22 H24 H31 J44 J61 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2015–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:15-014&r=mig |
| By: | d'Hombres, Beatrice (European Commission); Nunziata, Luca (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We use European Social Survey and Labour Force Survey data to estimate the causal effect of education on European natives' opinion toward immigration exploiting reforms in compulsory education in Europe in the 1960s through the 1990s. Our findings show that higher education leads to a more positive attitude toward immigrants. We also investigate the mechanisms behind the effect of education on attitudes by evaluating both economic and non-economic channels. We find that higher education places individuals in occupations that are less exposed to the negative externalities of migration, although not in sectors/occupations where the share of migrants is necessarily smaller, suggesting that migrants and low-educated natives are complementary rather than substitutes in the labour market. In addition, education alters values and the cognitive assessment of the role of immigration in host societies, with a positive effect on tolerance of diversity and a positive effect on the assessment of immigration's role in host countries. Our findings suggest that education as a policy instrument can increase social cohesion in societies that are subject to large immigration flows. |
| Keywords: | immigration, attitude towards immigrants, perception, education, compulsory education reforms |
| JEL: | I20 J61 J15 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8880&r=mig |
| By: | Ruhose, Jens (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Schwerdt, Guido (University of Konstanz) |
| Abstract: | We study whether early tracking of students based on ability increases migrant-native achievement gaps. To eliminate confounding impacts of unobserved country traits, we employ a differences-in-differences strategy that exploits international variation in the age of tracking as well as student achievement before and after potential tracking. Based on pooled data from 12 large-scale international student assessments, we show that cross-sectional estimates are likely to be downward-biased. Our differences-in-differences estimates suggest that early tracking does not significantly affect overall migrant-native achievement gaps, but we find evidence for a detrimental impact for less integrated migrants. |
| Keywords: | immigration, educational inequalities, educational tracking, differences-in-differences |
| JEL: | I21 J15 I28 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8903&r=mig |
| By: | Jaap Dronkers; Dronkers; Roxanne-Amanda Korthals |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between tracking and migrant students’ performance (and parental background), taking into account school selection policies, and to compare the results across natives, first and second generation migrants. We combine two insights: the need to take into account school level variables when estimating the relation between education system and student performance and the need for including region of origin to correctly estimate models for migrant students. We use PISA 2009, selecting 31 countries with school features, of which 15 countries with information on the region of origin of the migrant students. We run separate analyses for native and first and second generation migrants, without and with origin dummies. We find that migrant students in education systems with many tracks which are themselves in schools in which the principal always considers prior performance in accepting students to the school have equal or higher scores than students in systems with only one track. However, in the full sample the influence of education systems for first generation students is absent: their performance is nearly only based on individual and school characteristics, while the performance of second generation migrant students is also influenced by tracks or prior performance. Still, the influence of the combination of tracks and entrance selection is weaker than that for native students. |
| Keywords: | Cross-national comparison, migrant students, native students, education system, schools with and without entrance-selection based on prior achievement, PISA data, origin countriesCreation-Date: 2015-03 |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:improv:1508&r=mig |
| By: | Chiara Falco |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the educational level attained by individuals affects their migration propensity. Using an original 2006 Ecuadorian survey, which gathered information on household members who were not in the country at the time of the survey (i.e., emigrants), we implement a Regression Discontinuity Design and control for potential endogeneity of the education explanatory variable based on the 1977 educational reform in Ecuador. Our results provide evidence of positive self-selection among migrants. Taking into account the 27{57 age sample, an individual with a lower secondary level of education increases the migration propensity by 31.30%; this propensity is even higher (34.47%) when the sample of migrants is restricted to the urban areas. Considering both country-specific characteristics and gender differentials, our results do not indicate a significant impact of an increase in human capital on the male migration propensity. However, there is a positive and significant effect on the female migration propensity, in particular, for women from larger cities. The results are consistent with theoretical models related to positive self-selection in response to labor market distortions, such as the disparities between genders. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Education, Gender |
| JEL: | F22 J16 O15 I25 |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:297&r=mig |
| By: | Gottschalch, Sören |
| Abstract: | China's central government has rightfully recognized that successful urbanization will be decisive for the nation's future development. However, most city regions in China are not yet enjoying the net benefits that agglomerations in metropolitan regions can initiate. In this regard, following the latest discussions around the necessity of inclusive urban growth in China, the paper calls for a housing strategy that accommodates the surging waves of rural to urban migration, one of the main drivers of urbanization, and that provides migrants with greater urban socio-economic opportunities, improves migrants' urban prospects in order to facilitate a growing urban middle class as well as directing urban growth. Therefore, migrants' characteristics and their exposure to the immediate urban socio-economic environment are elaborated upon in order to understand migrants' housing priorities along their rural to urban transition. These housing priorities are the result of coping strategies in the face of distinctive urban opportunities and threats. In the context of migration, they form the underlying forces of housing demand development along the rural to urban transition. Eventually, when identified, these forces can be triggered in a way that enables urban growth to contribute to agglomeration benefits. This paper adds to the previous IPE working paper: "Urbanization in China and how urban housing demand can be met", by specifying the underlying forces of evolving migrant housing demands. |
| Keywords: | Urbanization,Migration,Migrant Groups,Transition,Urban Housing Demand |
| JEL: | D03 D14 D63 J61 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:472015&r=mig |
| By: | Joan Monras (Département d'économie) |
| Abstract: | How does the US labor market absorb low-skilled immigration? I address this question using the 1995 Mexican Peso Crisis, an exogenous push factor that raised Mexican migration to the US. In the short run, high-immigration states see their low-skilled labor force increase and native low-skilled wages decrease, with an implied local labor demand elasticity of -.7. Internal relocation dissipates this shock spatially. In the long run, the only lasting consequences are for low-skilled natives who entered the labor force in high-immigration years. A simple quantitative many-region model allows me to obtain the counterfactual local wage evolution absent the immigration shock. |
| Keywords: | International and internal migration, local shocks, local labor demand elasticity. |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/31alui3q4c913als7a73udp5dv&r=mig |
| By: | Arends-Kuenning, Mary P. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); Calara, Alvaro (affiliation not available); Go, Stella (De la Salle University, The Philippines) |
| Abstract: | We analyze trends in nursing education in the Philippines during a period of rising and falling demand for Philippine nurses in the developed countries. Based on focus group discussion data obtained in the Philippines, we examine students' motivations to become nurses and to what extent their choices were affected by the possibility of international migration. The number of nursing graduates rose, resulting in brain gain. However, policies promoting the migration of skilled workers such as nurses impose high costs on middle class and lower class families who invest in education hoping that a family member will be able to migrate. |
| Keywords: | brain drain, brain gain, international nurse migration, Philippines |
| JEL: | I11 J24 J44 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8881&r=mig |
| By: | Hippolyte d’Albis; Ekrame Boubtane; Dramane Coulibaly |
| Abstract: | This paper quantitatively assesses the interaction between permanent immigration into France and France's macroeconomic performance as seen through its GDP per capita and its unemployment rate. It takes advantage of a new database where immigration is measured by the ow of newly-issued long-term residence permits, categorized by both the nationality of the immigrant and the reason of permit issuance. Using a VAR model estimation of monthly data over the period 1994-2008, we find that immigration ow significantly responds to France's macroeconomic performance: positively to the country's GDP per capita and negatively to its unemployment rate. At the same time, we find that immigration itself increases France's GDP per capita, particularly in the case of family immigration. This family immigration also reduces the country's unemployment rate, especially when the families come from developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Female and Family Migration, Growth, Unemployment, VAR Models. |
| JEL: | E20 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2015-5&r=mig |