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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Federico Maggio (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy); Carlo Caporali (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy) |
| Abstract: | During the 2010s, Venezuela underwent the worst and deepest crisis of any nonwar- ridden country in modern history. The failure of the socialist utopia, the economic crisis, the increasing lack of primary resources, and the dictatorial turn have caused the third, most dramatic, and complex Venezuelan out-migration wave in the past decade. Drawing on exclusive and georeferenced survey data collected in Venezuela and providing information on 21,382 individuals, this paper investigates the role of the police force militarization in the Venezuelan migration crisis of 2018. We find that the higher is the level of authoritative violence - proxied by the share of homicides committed by the security forces - the higher is the likelihood for an individual to migrate. The effect is significant only among males with a lower level of education. Estimates which rely on the travel time from the capital to each state’s most populated city as an instrumental variable, are robust to the inclusion of several households, environmental and sociodemographic characteristics, including the overall level of violence represented by the number of violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. |
| Keywords: | Venezuela, Diaspora, State Violence, Police militarization. |
| JEL: | F22 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bzn:wpaper:bemps92&r= |
| By: | Patricio Dom\'inguez; Nicol\'as Grau; Dami\'an Vergara |
| Abstract: | This paper tests for discrimination against immigrant defendants in the criminal justice system in Chile using a decade of nationwide administrative records on pretrial detentions. Observational benchmark regressions show that immigrant defendants are 8.6 percentage points less likely to be released pretrial relative to Chilean defendants with similar proxies for pretrial misconduct potential. Diagnostics for omitted variable bias -- including a novel test to assess the quality of the proxy vector based on comparisons of pretrial misconduct rates among released defendants -- suggest that the discrimination estimates are not driven by omitted variable bias and that, if anything, failing to fully account for differences in misconduct potential leads to an underestimation of discrimination. Our estimates suggest that discrimination stems from an informational problem because judges do not observe criminal records in origin countries, with stereotypes and taste-based discrimination playing a role in the problem's resolution. We find that discrimination is especially large for drug offenses and that discrimination increased after a recent immigration wave. |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2202.10685&r= |
| By: | Paula Prenzel; Niels Bosma; Veronique Schutjens; Erik Stam |
| Abstract: | A growing empirical literature has established a positive relationship between cultural diversity and entrepreneurship rates, often attributing this effect to innovative benefits of diversity. However, not all entrepreneurship is inherently innovative, raising the question of whether cultural diversity may increase the relative prevalence of entrepreneurs pursuing innovative instead of more replicative strategies. This study investigates the relationship between regional cultural diversity and the innovation-orientation of early-stage entrepreneurs and considers moderating factors by decomposing shares of foreign-born population by origin within and outside of the EU and by education level. Combining survey data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor with various measures of cultural diversity, we carry out a multilevel analysis for 166 European regions. The results suggest that entrepreneurs in more culturally diverse regions are significantly more likely to exhibit innovation-orientation. We find some evidence that this effect is supported by cognitive proximity as the share of EU-born foreign population is driving this result. Moreover, our analysis suggests that the effect of cultural diversity on innovative entrepreneurship is not due to human capital availability or moderated by entrepreneurs' absorptive capacity but rather stems from the diversity in cultural background itself. |
| Keywords: | cultural diversity, entrepreneurship, innovation, European regions, multilevel analysis |
| JEL: | F22 L26 O30 R1 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2205&r= |
| By: | Celia P. Vera (Universidad de Piura); Bruno Jiménez (Universidad Nacional de La Plata) |
| Abstract: | Peru is the second largest host nation of Venezuelan migrants. This paper combines newly available data on Venezuelans residing in Peru and the Peruvian Household Survey to assess the impact of migration on natives? labor market outcomes. We first rely upon education-experience groups to define labor markets and find that immigration does not affect the wages of competing native workers. We then slice the labor market into occupations based on the observation that in Peru, immigrants and natives with similar education and experience are likely to work in different occupations. Our instrumental variable estimates confirm the null effect on wages. We finally examine whether natives respond with changes in employment and find that 10 Venezuelan workers create informal employment for 38 Peruvians and displace 13 Peruvians from formal jobs, suggesting a change in the Peruvian employment composition toward informality. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, education-experience cells, occupation cells, informality |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J46 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ima:wpaper:2022-018&r= |
| By: | Giuseppe De Arcangelis (Sapienza University of Rome); Dean Yang (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | We conducted a randomized experiment of the impact of remittance labeling among Filipino migrant workers in the UAE. The ability to label remittances with the migrantÕs intended uses leads migrants with low levels of baseline (pre-treatment) remittances to increase their remittance levels. There is no effect of labeling for migrants with initially higher remittance levels. We also examined impacts of remittance labeling on household expenditures in treated migrantsÕ remittance-recipient households in the Philippines. The labeling treatment does not lead to higher expenditures on uses that migrants report as priority items (in the full sample or in subsamples split by baseline remittances). There is only weak or mixed evidence that labeling leads to actual changes in household expenditures towards the purposes preferred by migrants. |
| Keywords: | RCT, Philippines, remittances |
| JEL: | F24 O15 D19 C9 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mie:wpaper:684&r= |
| By: | Briones, Kristine Joy; Del Mundo, Michael Dominic |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic disruption in the Philippines, resulting in loss of income for many workers. Because of this, many internal migrants, particularly those who continued to have close ties to their place of origin, returned home. This report investigates internal migrants in the country using preliminary data from the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) by the Philippine Statistics Authority. While not completely exhaustive, the 2020 CPH may help identify arease where the population has increased or decreased compared to expectations or population projections. Higher-than-expected population is due to relocation of families from danger zones to resettlement areas. Lower-than expected population, on the other hand, is seen areas where natural calamities frequently strike and in urbanized areas usually populated by students and worker residents before the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, internal migration, population, Philippines |
| JEL: | I1 J6 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:111917&r= |
| By: | Pieroni, Luca; d'Agostino, Giorgio; Lanari, Donatella; Scarlato, Margherita |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine how immigrants' proficiency in the Italian language affects their labour market performance using hitherto unexploited immigration survey published by the Italian Institute of Statistics. With respect to immigrants with good proficiency in the Italian language, our empirical findings suggest that weak language proficiency reduces employment by about 25-30 percentage points. Language proficiency in Italian also significantly affects the hourly wages of immigrants. The point estimates suggest an hourly wage gap of more than 30% between immigrants with good proficiency in the Italian language compared to those with weak proficiency, irrespective of gender. Robustness checks confirmed our estimates. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, Language skills, Employment, Hourly wages |
| JEL: | J15 J20 J31 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:111991&r= |
| By: | Emanuele Millemaci (University of Messina); Alessandra Patti (University of Messina) |
| Abstract: | In recent years, young brain drain within Italian provinces has increased at higher speed than ever. While is premature to assess whether this process is transitory or permanent, it should be analysed and monitored by researchers and policy makers for its many socio-economic consequences. Previous empirical studies have demonstrated that Italian net skilled migration is influenced by economic factors, such as income per capita and employment, and, with a less extent, by the search of places endowed with more amenities. In the crossroad between these factors, this paper investigates corruption as key element of the Italian skilled mobility. To this end, a comprehensive framework with Zero-Inflated Poisson and Pseudo-Poisson Maximum Likelihood with High Dimensional Fixed Effects models for bilateral data on the Italian students’ flows is used. Results suggest the dual role of push and pull mechanisms at play, as high corruption incentivizes Italian skilled mobility to destinations that, instead, exhibit lower corruption. Moreover, sensitivity of the prospective tertiary students to corruption varies according to their field of study of interest. Finally, empirical evidence on skilled flows from the lagging Mezzogiorno to the North of Italy, suggests that the push and pull effects of corruption stir up the endurance of the well-known socio-economic dualism between these two parts of the country. |
| Keywords: | Brain drain, Corruption, Panel data, Gravity, Zip, Ppmlhdfe |
| JEL: | D73 F12 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2022.10&r= |
| By: | Luca Marchiori (Banque centrale du Luxembourg, Département Économie et Recherche); Julien Pascal (Banque centrale du Luxembourg, Département Économie et Recherche); Olivier Pierrard (Banque centrale du Luxembourg, Département Économie et Recherche) |
| Abstract: | We develop a monocentric urban search-and-matching model in which workers can choose to commute or to migrate within the region. The equilibrium endogenously allocates the population into three categories: migrants (relocate from their hometown to the city), commuters (traveling to work in the city) and home stayers (remaining in their hometown). We prove that the market equilibrium is usually not optimal: a composition externality may generate under- or over-migration with respect to the central planner’s solution, which in all cases results in under-investment in job vacancies and therefore production. We calibrate the model to the Greater Paris area to reproduce several gradients observed in the data, suggesting over-migration. We show how policy interventions can help to reduce inefficiencies. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Commuting, Urban search-and-matching, Efficiency, Policy |
| JEL: | E24 J68 R13 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–03–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2022006&r= |