Two prominent features of international labor movements are that the more educated are more likely to emigrate (positive selection) and more educated migrants are more likely to settle in destination ...countries with high rewards to skill (positive sorting). Using data on emigrant stocks by schooling level and source country in OECD destinations, we find that a simple model of income maximization can account for both phenomena. Results on selection show that migrants for a source-destination pair are more educated relative to non-migrants the larger is the absolute skill-related difference in earnings between the destination country and the source. Results on sorting indicate that the relative stock of more educated migrants in a destination is increasing in the absolute earnings difference between high and low-skilled workers. We use our framework to compare alternative specifications of international migration, estimate the magnitude of migration costs by source-destination pair, and assess the contribution of wage differences to how migrants sort themselves across destination countries.
Diasporas Beine, Michel; Docquier, Frédéric; Özden, Çağlar
Journal of development economics,
05/2011, Volume:
95, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Migration flows are shaped by a complex combination of self-selection and out-selection mechanisms, both of which are affected by the presence of a diaspora abroad. In this paper, we analyze how ...existing diasporas (the stock of people born in a country and living in another one) affect the size and human-capital structure of current bilateral migration flows. Our analysis exploits a bilateral data set on international migration by educational attainment from 195 countries to 30 OECD countries in 1990 and 2000. Based on simple micro-foundations and controlling for various determinants of migration, we found that diasporas increase migration flows and lower their average educational level. Interestingly, diasporas explain majority of the variability of migration flows and selection. This suggests that, without changing the generosity of family reunion programs, education-based selection rules are likely to have moderate impact. Our results are highly robust to the econometric techniques, accounting for the large proportion of zeros and endogeneity problems.
•Cross-sectional studies suggest: Economic growth increases migration in poor countries.•Yet, neglecting systematic country differences risks an omitted variable bias.•The panel estimations in this ...paper yield contrasting results: Emigration falls as incomes increase.•These results imply that conducive economic policies can actually reduce emigration.
Comparing emigration rates of countries at different stages of economic development, an inverse u-shape emerges. Since the “migration hump” peaks at an average income of 6000 to 10 000 USD, economic progress in developing countries is often assumed to increase migration consistently. However, it is poorly understood to what extend country-level characteristics, individual incomes and other dimensions of development evoke this pattern, which limits its value for causal inference and concrete policy advice. In this paper we focus on the role of economic growth and investigate whether in developing countries emigration indeed increases with economic progress at shorter more policy-relevant time periods of up to 10 years. Using 35 years of data on migration flows to OECD destinations, we successfully reproduce the hump-shape in the cross-section. However, our more rigorous fixed effects panel estimations that exploit the variation over time robustly feature contrasting results: emigration rates fall as incomes increase. This finding holds independent of the level of income a country starts out at. In contrast to prevailing development emigration narratives, our results imply that rising individual incomes discourage emigration and hence conducive economic policies can reduce emigration. Our findings do not rule out that other slow-moving development dimensions such as educational advancement, demographic change, and structural economic transformation could still increase migration in the long term.
While there is considerable interest in understanding the climate–migration relationship, particularly in the context of concerns about global climatic change, little is known about its underlying ...mechanisms. In the paper, we combine a rich panel data on annual bilateral international migration flows with an extensive data on climate variability across the countries to investigate in-depth the climate–migration link. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between temperature and international outmigration only in the most agriculture-dependent countries, consistent with the widely documented adverse impact of temperature on agricultural productivity. Further, the temperature–migration relationship is nonlinear and resembles the nonlinear temperature–yield relationship. In addition, migration flows to current major destinations are especially temperature-sensitive. Policies to address issues related to climate-induced international migration would be more efficient if focused on the agriculture-dependent countries and especially people in those countries whose livelihoods depend on agriculture.
•We examine the relationship between climate variability and international migration.•We use an annual bilateral international migration data set for 1980–2010.•Temperature induces international outmigration only from agricultural countries.•Migration flows to current major destinations are especially temperature-sensitive.
Integrated Modeling of European Migration Raymer, James; Wiśniowski, Arkadiusz; Forster, Jonathan J ...
Journal of the American Statistical Association,
09/2013, Volume:
108, Issue:
503
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
International migration data in Europe are collected by individual countries with separate collection systems and designs. As a result, reported data are inconsistent in availability, definition, and ...quality. In this article, we propose a Bayesian model to overcome the limitations of the various data sources. The focus is on estimating recent international migration flows among 31 countries in the European Union and European Free Trade Association from 2002 to 2008, using data collated by Eurostat. We also incorporate covariate information and information provided by experts on the effects of undercount, measurement, and accuracy of data collection systems. The methodology is integrated and produces a synthetic database with measures of uncertainty for international migration flows and other model parameters. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
This paper synthesizes insights from new global data on the effeaiveness of migration policies. It investigates the complex links between migration policies and migration trends to disentangle policy ...effects from structural migration determinants. The analysis challenges two central assumptions underpinning the popular idea that migration restrictions have failed to curb migration. First, post-WWII global migration levels have not accelerated, but remained relatively stable while most shifts in migration patterns have been directional. Second, post-WWII migration policies have generally liberalized despite political rhetoric suggesting the contrary. While migration policies are generally effective, "substitution effects" can limit their effeaiveness, or even make them counterproduaive, by geographically diverting migration, interrupting circulation, encouraging unauthorized migration, or prompting "now or never" migration surges. These effeas expose fundamental policy dilemmas and highlight the importance of understanding the economic, social, and political trends that shape migration in sometimes counterintuitive, but powerful, ways that largely lie beyond the reach of migration policies.
The use of bilateral data for the analysis of international migration is at the same time a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because the dyadic dimension of the data allows researchers to ...address a number of previously unanswered questions, but it is also a curse for the various analytical challenges it gives rise to. This paper presents the theoretical foundations of the estimation of gravity models of international migration, and the main difficulties that have to be tackled in the econometric analysis, such as the nature of migration data, how to account for multilateral resistance to migration or endogeneity. We also review some empirical evidence that has considered these issues.
This article examines the importance of language in international migration from multiple angles by studying the role of linguistic proximity, widely spoken languages, linguistic enclaves and ...language-based immigration policy requirements. To this aim we collect a unique data set on immigration flows and stocks in 30 OECD destinations from all world countries over the period 1980–2010 and construct a set of linguistic proximity measures. Migration rates increase with linguistic proximity and with English at destination. Softer linguistic requirements for naturalisation and larger linguistic communities at destination encourage more migrants to move. Linguistic proximity matters less when local linguistic networks are larger.
Multilateral resistance to migration Bertoli, Simone; Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús
Journal of development economics,
05/2013, Volume:
102, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The rate of migration observed between two countries does not depend solely on their relative attractiveness, but also on the one of alternative destinations. Following the trade literature, we term ...the influence exerted by other destinations on bilateral flows as Multilateral Resistance to Migration, and we show how it can be accounted for when estimating the determinants of migration rates in the context of a general individual random utility maximization model. We propose the use of the Common Correlated Effects estimator (Pesaran, 2006) and apply it to high-frequency data on the Spanish immigration boom between 1997 and 2009. Compared to more restrictive estimation strategies developed in the literature, the bias goes in the expected direction: we find a smaller effect of GDP per capita and a larger effect of migration policies on bilateral rates.
This paper reviews four decades of economics research on the brain drain, with a focus on recent contributions and on development issues. We first assess the magnitude, intensity, and determinants of ...the brain drain, showing that brain drain (or high-skill) migration is becoming a dominant pattern of international migration and a major aspect of globalization. We then use a stylized growth model to analyze the various channels through which a brain drain affects the sending countries and review the evidence on these channels. The recent empirical literature shows that high-skill emigration need not deplete a country's human capital stock and can generate positive network externalities. Three case studies are also considered: the African medical brain drain, the exodus of European scientists to the United States, and the role of the Indian diaspora in the development of India's information technology sector. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the analysis for education, immigration, and international taxation policies in a global context.
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