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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Emi Nakamura; Jósef Sigurdsson; Jón Steinsson |
| Abstract: | We exploit a volcanic “experiment” to study the costs and benefits of geographic mobility. We show that moving costs (broadly defined) are very large and labor therefore does not flow to locations where it earns the highest returns. In our experiment, a third of the houses in a town were covered by lava. People living in these houses where much more likely to move away permanently. For those younger than 25 years old who were induced to move, the “lava shock” dramatically raised lifetime earnings and education. Yet, the benefits of moving were very unequally distributed within the family: Those older than 25 (the parents) were made slightly worse off by the shock. The town affected by our volcanic experiment was (and is) a relatively high income town. We interpret our findings as evidence of the importance of comparative advantage: the gains to moving may be very large for those badly matched to the location they happened to be born in, even if differences in average income are small. |
| JEL: | E24 J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22392&r=mig |
| By: | Andersson, Tommy (Department of Economics, Lund University); Ehlers , Lars (Département de sciences économiques and CIREQ, Université de Montréal) |
| Abstract: | In Sweden, asylum seekers are either deported or granted a residence permit. Refugee families with a residence permit are assigned to the different local municipalities. Since almost all accommodation options are exhausted in Sweden, households in some municipalities are asked to state their willingness to accommodate refugee families. In line with the European NGO “Refugees Welcome”, a refugee family and a landlord (household) are mutually acceptable if they have a language in common and if the number of offered beds of the household exceeds the number of beds needed by the refugee family. This paper proposes an algorithm that finds a maximum matching (filling the maximal number of beds) which in addition is stable. |
| Keywords: | Refugees; landlords; stability; maximum matchings; market design |
| JEL: | C71 C78 D71 D78 |
| Date: | 2016–07–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2016_018&r=mig |
| By: | Lorenza Errighi; Jörn Griesse |
| Abstract: | Since the outbreak of the armed conflict in Syria, the neighbours Jordan and Lebanon have been faced with the arrival of a large number of refugees. Aside from the immediate humanitarian needs of the Syrian refugees, their integration into the local labour market is crucial to enable refugees to improve their situation through their own efforts and, for host countries, to reap more of the potential economic benefits from the demographic boost. However, the labour market policy response in Jordan and Lebanon has so far broadly gone in a direction of limiting refugees’ access in an attempt to protect the native population. While this is understandable given the large number of refugees, joint efforts from host governments and the international community are required to engage refugees in productive and formalised economic activities, along with increasing the labour market potential of the native population. The EU is part of this international effort that seeks to combine external support with national policy action. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:euf:dispap:029&r=mig |
| By: | Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina (San Diego State University); Arenas-Arroyo, Esther (Queen Mary, University of London); Sevilla, Almudena (Queen Mary, University of London) |
| Abstract: | Over the past two decades immigration enforcement has grown exponentially in the United States. We exploit the geographical and temporal variation in a novel index of the intensity of immigration enforcement between 2005 and 2011 to show how the average yearly increase in interior immigration enforcement over that time period raised the likelihood of living in poverty of households with U.S. citizen children by 4 percent. The effect is robust to a number of identification tests accounting for the potential endogeneity of enforcement policies, and is primarily driven by police-based immigration enforcement measures adopted at the local level such as 287(g) agreements. |
| Keywords: | immigration enforcement, poverty, U.S. citizen children, unauthorized parents |
| JEL: | I38 J15 K37 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10030&r=mig |
| By: | Martinez, Isabel Z. |
| Abstract: | Tax competition raises the question to which extent taxpayers respond to differences in income tax rates by migrating to low-tax areas. This paper analyzes a large, two-step tax reform in the canton of Obwalden in central Switzerland in 2006 and 2008. The canton first introduced a regressive income tax scheme with the explicit purpose of attracting affluent taxpayers, followed by a flat rate tax, thereby lowering taxes for all taxpayers. DiD estimations comparing Obwalden and two neighboring cantons confirm that the reform was successful in increasing the canton’s tax base by increasing the share of rich and their average income. Using individual tax data I apply a 2SLS approach to estimate how responsive migration was to the tax reduction. I find an elasticity of the stock of rich taxpayers in the canton with respect to the average net-of-tax rate of 1.9–2.4. The elasticity of the inflow of rich taxpayers is even larger, ranging from 5 to 12. These large elasticities can be explained by (i) the large pool of intentionally treated in the present institutional setting, which puts almost no restrictions on taxpayers to take advantage of the low tax, and (ii) the initially low share of rich taxpayers in Obwalden combined with the small size of the canton. A small number of rich taxpayers relocating therefore translates into a large elasticity. DiD estimates of cantonal revenue, however, suggest that the tax cuts despite attracting and retaining a substantial number of rich taxpayers, did not lead to an increase |
| Keywords: | Tax-induced mobility; Personal income tax; Local taxes; Tax competition; Elasticity of taxable income ETI |
| JEL: | H71 H73 R23 H31 H24 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2016:08&r=mig |
| By: | Assaf Razin (tel aviv university) |
| Abstract: | Within a standard general equilibrium political economy model the paper analyzes how redistribution policies and migration policies are determined with an economic union. The competition among member states leads to over generosity of the welfare state and unskilled biased migration, relative to the same economic union under coordination. Application to EU and the US is suggested. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed016:116&r=mig |
| By: | Todd Schoellman (Arizona State University); Lutz Hendricks (UNC Chapel Hill) |
| Abstract: | We reconsider the role for human capital in accounting for cross-country income differences. Our contribution is to bring to bear new data on the pre- and post- migration labor market experiences of immigrants to the U.S. Immigrants from poor countries experience wage gains that are only 40 percent of the GDP per worker gap. This fact implies that “country†accounts for only 40 percent of cross-country income differences, while human capital accounts for the other 60 percent. Our work deals with two well-known problems in the literature. It controls for selection by using data on the wages of the same individual in two different countries. We provide evidence on the importance of skill transfer by comparing pre- and post-migration occupations. Occupational downgrading at migration is common; corrections for this imply that human capital may account for as little as 50 percent of cross-country income differences. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed016:159&r=mig |
| By: | Brücker, Herbert (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Kunert, Astrid; Mangold, Ulrike; Kalusche, Barbara; Siegert, Manuel; Schupp, Jürgen |
| Abstract: | "Why have refugees left their home countries, what experiences have they made when fleeing to other countries and why have they chosen Germany as their county of destination? What are their characteristics in terms of education, vocational training and other abilities? What are their attitudes, values and expectations regarding a living in Germany? What are their preconditions for their integration into the labour market, the educational system and other areas of the society? What are the hurdles and limitations for integration? This study provides first insights on these questions. On behalf of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the Research Centre on Migration, Integration and Asylum of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF-FZ) and the Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), TNS Infratest Sozialforschung and QMR - Qualitative Mind Research have interviewed 123 refugees and 26 experts qualitatively to address these questions. As main reasons to leave their home country the respondents, except for those from the Balkan countries, name personal threats of war and persecution. Many made traumatic experiences on their escape. The educational biographies of the respondents highly vary depending on the situation in their home countries. The refugees associate values such as freedom, constitutionality, democracy and separation of church and state with Germany and most of them strongly support these values. Furthermore, many interviewed refugees describe the asylum procedures and the associated long waiting times for appointments and decisions as very incriminating. At the time of survey most respondents had hardly any idea about how to access the labor market. However, almost all of them showed high work motivation and willingness to integrate." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information feldbegleitende Dokumente hier finden Sie den IAB-Kurzbericht 15/2016 zum Thema |
| Keywords: | Flüchtlinge, Einwanderung, soziale Situation, Bildungsmotivation, psychosoziale Faktoren, Wanderungsmotivation, Berufsverlauf, Geschlechterrolle, Erwerbsmotivation, Spracherwerb, Integrationsbereitschaft |
| Date: | 2016–07–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfob:201609&r=mig |