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The paper explores, under a wide variety of circumstances, the welfare impact of emigration. The analytical framework posited is a simple two-factor, two-commodity, two-class general equilibrium model that makes a distinction between traded and non-traded goods. The principal aim is to collect and synthesize the well- known results in the literature, derived from diverse analytical frameworks, as well as to establish a number of new ones. It is shown that pure emigration can be beneficial to the non-emigrants in the source country, irrespective of the welfare criteria adopted, if accompanied by sufficient remittances. The paper also highlights the fact that emigation does not affect all classes in society symmetrically. The division of losers and gainers depends on the volume of remittances, the distribution of factor endowments and the type of emigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article presents several documents released by government organizations. The United States Council of Economic Advisers released "Immigration's Economic Impact" that discusses the economic impact of immigration in the U.S. A news paper article by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concerning migration and globalization is presented and appeared in the July 9, 2007 issue of the "Washington Post." A speech by French president Nicholas Sarkozy titled "Tasks of the European Union" is presented.

Abstract This paper examines the impact of immigration on a host country with welfare state arrangements that support both the unemployed and the elderly. It is shown that low-skilled immigration increases the unemployment rate. Furthermore, it harms the low-skilled native population and benefits the high-skilled natives and pensioners. Nevertheless, as under competitive labor markets, immigration generates an unambiguous gain for the native population as a whole. However, in contrast to the findings under full employment, this gain can be dampened by an expansion of the pension system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract. This paper presents a test of the human capital model applied to migration. Micro data are used to estimate earnings functions for 1971 which include variables associated with personal and labour market characteristics and also earnings at the start of the data period (1965 or 1966) to represent prior human capital. Migration activity is restricted to single moves which differentiate between short- and long-distance moves and between moves made early and late in the 1965-71 period. The testing process and the final estimates show that it is very difficult to detect a significantly positive effect of migration on income within a five-year time horizon. The immediate payoffs appear to be negative, but even some years after the move the average payoffs are extremely small. Married women experience strongly negative payoffs from long-distance moves made in the early part of the period. Married and single males, and persons in the lower half of the income distribution register positive payoffs after a few years. These weak results are not inconsistent with earlier work, but they do raise some important questions about the strong conclusions often drawn from empirical work on migration patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to describe and estimate a model of returns to migration which explicitly accounts for self-selection of migrants from the working population. The essence of the problem as it pertains to migration is summarized in a recent survey:
The present study is intended as a point of departure for more fruitful analysis, so that returns to migration need not be couched in terms of a mere "lower bound" of migrant earnings.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section II describes a simple model of migrant behavior in which the decision to migrate, viewed in the context of investment in human capital, results as the solution to an optimal control problem. Section III provides details of a simultaneous equations model which incorporates the decision to migrate, returns to migration and self-selection. Results of estimation are presented in Section IV, based on a large random sample of individual wage earners taken from the Continuous Work History Sample (CWHS) of the Social Security Administration. Section V summarizes and concludes the study.
This study represents the first attempt to incorporate endogenous selectivity into a model of migration and income. The structural model comprises a decision equation along with earnings equations for migrants and non-migrants. Estimation of the model is conducted by a two stage procedure which has proven effective in other empirical studies of self-selection. Results of estimation lead to the major findings of the study: (1) there is strong evidence of self-selection in the earnings of non-migrants; (2) the effect of the self-selection process on unconditional expected earnings is positive; and (3) the structural decision equation has among its explanatory variables expected changes in earnings, thus supporting the traditional Sjaastad framework for the human capital approach to migration.
The results of this study indicate that viable opportunities for research exist... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although immigration debates in the popular press sometimes focus on the perceived negative aspects, immigrants may actually stimulate innovation, thereby promoting job creation and enhancing productivity. Although there is an emerging international literature on the impact of migration on innovation, Australian studies are limited. Given the importance of net immigration to Australian society, this is an oversight. In this article, recent developments in the international literature on the migration-innovation relationship are critically reviewed and their implications for the debate in Australia are considered. Moreover, some ideas on how to improve the evidence base for policy-making in Australia are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration has and will continue to alter the composition of housing demand in the United Sates. In this article, we analyze results from a new survey of Mexican-heritage households to draw some inferences about tenure choice within that group. Some measures of attachment to the United States—residency status and the amount of money sent to relatives and friends in Mexico—suggest that, among Mexican immigrants, permanence is a key determinant of homeownership in the United States. More specifically, being a citizen increased the probability of ownership, whereas being undocumented reduces the probability. Surprisingly, after controlling for residency status, length of tenure in the United States does not predict tenure status, except that those who refused to report length of tenure were more likely to have higher tenure status. Those who sent remittances home to Mexico were less likely to become homeowners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A modified gravity model is estimated using a cross section of data drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau survey of 2000 in order to analyze the impact of economic freedom on gross migration flows among the lower 48 states. Spatial econometric methods are utilized in order to capture spatial effects not detected by distance. In addition, the Economic Freedom of North America Index is decomposed to determine the individual impact of various policies. Results show that states with higher relative economic freedom experience greater migration inflow through its direct impact on income and employment growth. In aggregate, the findings indicate that individuals migrate toward states with relatively higher government consumption expenditures, relatively lower tax burdens, and states with more freedom with respect to labor decisions in the form of less restrictive minimum wages, less concentration of unions, and less dependence on public employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the income, employment and distributional impact of immigration on a recipient economy facing an administered wage distortion. It is found that immigration increases the unemployment rate of the native population and shifts income distribution against labor and in favor of the non-labor input. Its effect on the total income of the non-immigrants is, however, ambiguous, and depends on the relative importance of the increase in unemployment versus the net increase in the rent received by the owners of the non-labor input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we have developed a simple two-country, single-period model to study the effect of quota restrictions on the composition of migrating labor. We have divided the migrant population in two general categories called high skilled and low skilled and have shown that free migration of any category of labor occurs if and only if the country's share of world resources is different from its share of the world labor endowment in that category. If immigrant quotas are in statute indiscriminate with respect to skill categories, but are allocated as a competitive auction, then while producing a shift in the composition of the migrant labor (relative to the free migration situation), their effect on the composition remains ambiguous. It hinges on the effect of natural resources on the incomes of the low and high skilled labor. If the imposition of the quota results in a larger income differential between the high skill labor than the lower skill labor, then the imposition of the quota causes the average quality of the migrant labor (relative to the no quota situation) to shift towards the high skilled side. This is in agreement with Alchian and Allen's proposition as also that preferred by Falvey [6]. However, as we have shown, it is possible for the quota to shift the average quality of the migrant labor towards the lower skilled side. This would occur if a proportionate reduction in the labor force in the host country increases the marginal product of the low skilled workers by a larger quantity than it does that of the high skilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a specific duration model to analyze the prediction of the credit rating migration. We consider hazard rate processes based on multi‐state autoregressive conditional duration models. To take account of the economic context, we model the conditional mean of the duration between two ratings by means of a latent process. To this purpose, a dynamic‐ordered probit model is developed to describe the directions taken by the ratings in the presence of multiple states. As an illustration, we study the migration of credit rating during periods before and after the financial crisis. (JEL C14, C41, G24) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the average productivity of migrants (who work in a country different from their country of origin) and stayers (whose entire academic career takes place in their country of origin) in a set of 2,530 highly productive economists that work in 2007 in a selection of the top 81 Economics departments worldwide. The main findings are the following two. First, productivity comparisons depend on the cohort and the type of department. For example, in the top U.S. departments, foreigners are more productive than stayers only among older individuals; in the bottom U.S. departments, this is the case for both cohorts, while in the other countries the productivity of foreigners and stayers is indistinguishable for both cohorts. Second, when we restrict our attention to an elite consisting of economists with above average productivity, all productivity differences between migrants and stayers in the United States vanish. As our analysis depends on observational data in which the migration decision is not exogenously identified, our estimates have a descriptive rather than a causal interpretation. However, our results are very robust to the treatment of the elite, the partition into several department categories, and the definition of the cohorts and the productivity notion. ( JEL J61) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the potential of immigration to address the labor shortage in the chemical industry in Germany. Topics include the call of federal employers association BAVC to the government to promote Germany as an immigration-friendly country, the factors that affected the labor shortage and the employment opportunities available in the country to encourage foreign workers.

This article argues that the massive increase in transatlantic British and Irish emigration after 1840 was enabled by declining fares and ocean travel costs. New series of transatlantic steerage fares drawn from the unique Cope Line records at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania ( HSP) show westward fares fell rapidly from 1830. Adjusted for British and US manual wages, westward travel costs, including provisions, almost halved between 1847 and 1851-3, when Irish migration peaked. Hence although the Irish had to leave Ireland, they might not otherwise have gone so extensively to North America. Eastward travel costs also fell after 1830, encouraging an unexpectedly large return migration to Britain in the late1850s, and maybe earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies routinely document that immigrant employment concentrates in non-traded goods sectors and that many immigrants have low inter-sectoral mobility. We consider these observed characteristics of immigrant employment with regard to the question of how immigration affects a nation's pattern of production and trade. We model an economy producing three goods; one is non-traded. Domestic labor and capital are domestically mobile but internationally immobile. Allowing that some new immigrants will become specific to the non-traded goods sector, the model indicates that the effects of immigration on output and trade depend importantly on the sectoral pattern of employment of both new and existing immigrants. Empirical investigation in a panel data set of OECD countries supports the model's prediction that immigration raises the output of non-traded goods. Consistent with the model, we also find that immigration and trade are complements. Given its empirical support, the model's implications for immigration policy are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a gravity model of migration and alternative estimation strategies to analyze how income differentials affect the flow of immigrants into U.S. states using annual data from the American Community Survey. We add to existing literature by decomposing income differentials into short- and long-term components and by focusing on newly arrived less-educated immigrants between 2000 and 2009. Our sample is unique in that the vast majority of our observations take zero values. Models that include observations with zero-flow values find that recent male immigrants respond to differences in (short-term) GDP fluctuations between origin countries and U.S. states, and perhaps to (long-term) trend GDP differences as well. More specifically, GDP fluctuations pull less-educated male immigrants into certain U.S. states, whereas GDP trends push less-educated male immigrants out of their countries of origin. Effects for less-educated women are less robust, as GDP coefficients tend to be much smaller than for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study exploits the natural experiment, provided by the start of the second intifada, to measure the effect of immigration on the wage and employment of unskilled native workers. It finds that immigration has no effect on the wage or employment of unskilled Jewish workers. The wage and employment of the least-skilled Israeli Arab workers (with zero to five years of schooling) are adversely affected by immigration. The slightly more skilled Arab workers (with six to 11 years of schooling), in contrast, are positively affected by immigration, suggesting a complementarity effect with this group. Different explanations are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controversies about international migration expose the changing structure of and underlying assumptions about societal membership in many nations. The sociology of international migration has emerged as an increasingly important subfield over the past decade in large part because it has tended to move beyond more narrow economic and demographic problems and has begun to address this fundamentally sociological issue. In the future it will be particularly important that sociologists pay attention to how demographically changing societies define who is and is not a member. As such, legal status and the role of the state has become critically important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the impacts of remittances on poverty in Tonga, a poor Pacific island country highly dependent on migrants' remittances. Using household survey data, we apply Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to estimate without-remittances incomes of migrant households from which counterfactual poverty rates are derived. We compare these with poverty rates from observed income including remittances to gauge their effects on poverty. We find that remittances reduce the incidence of poverty by 31 per cent and depth of poverty by 49 per cent. The results are robust both to alternative specifications of the PSM model and to use of an alternative counterfactual income estimation method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relative wealth position of immigrant households residing in Australia, Germany, and the United States. In Germany and the United States, wealth differentials stem from differences in the educational attainment and demographic characteristics of the native and immigrant populations, rather than income differentials. In contrast, the small nativity wealth gap in Australia exists because immigrants to Australia do not translate their relative educational and demographic advantage into a wealth advantage. Overall, we find substantial disparity in the economic well-being of immigrant and native families which is largely consistent with domestic labor markets and immigration policies. ( JEL F22, D31) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents value added estimates for the Italian regions, in benchmark years 1891–1951, which are linked to those from official figures available from 1971 on, in order to offer a long-term picture of Italy’s regional development. Regional activity rates and productivity are also discussed and compared. Some basic questions about Italy’s economic history are briefly considered, including the origins and extent of the north–south divide, the role of migration and regional policy in shaping the pattern of regional inequality, and the positioning of Italy in the international debate on regional convergence, where it stands out because of the long-run persistence of its disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the reasons explaining the author's assertion that Mexican-born women are more likely to participate in the U.S. workforce than Mexican-born women in Mexico. The author discusses traditional gender roles among Mexican and Mexican-American women, specifically the likelihood of Mexican-American women who are married and/or have children of participating in the workplace. The article also analyzes the immigration of Mexican-born women to the U.S. and how migration patterns impact the rate of employment for Mexican-born women in the U.S. and Mexico. The author also examines the types of jobs held by Mexican-born women in the U.S., particularly in farming, administrative office support, and sales.

We develop a theoretical model using migration and trade theory to examine the effects of domestic and border enforcement policies on unauthorized workers and the U.S. agricultural sector. The theoretical results show that heightened immigration policies increase the illegal farm wage rate, and reduce the employment of unauthorized farm workers and exports. The empirical analysis show that increased domestic enforcements curtail the number of undocumented farm workers by an average of 8,947 and commodity exports to Mexico by an average of $180 million. The tighter border control curbs illegal farm workers by 8,147 and reduces farm exports by $181 million. ( JEL F160) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops an endogenous growth model of migration to analyze the impact of international migration on the economic growth of a source country. When making their fertility and education decisions, adults may have the option of migrating to a foreign country. We find that changes in the migration probability or the extent of migration costs will lead to a trade-off between the quality and the quantity of children. When a host country cannot differentiate between the abilities of migrants, an increase in migration probability will raise a source country’s economic growth. When low- and high-skilled workers are faced with different migration probabilities, allowing more low-skilled workers to emigrate will cause a “brain gain” in both the short run and the long run. However, relaxation of restrictions on the emigration of high-skilled workers will damage economic growth in the long run, although a brain gain may occur in the short run.( JEL F22, J24, O15) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of low-status consumer service jobs in the UK are undertaken by economic migrants, who are often recruited through the aegis of employment agencies. This article explores the use of migrant agency workers by a London hotel and a hospital, looking at the ways in which such a labour force is recruited and assembled in parts of the service sector in Greater London. It argues that even in the most locally-based of service-sector jobs, typically involving face to face interactions, new sets of transnational connections are producing a globalized labour force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic performance of U.S. immigrants differs substantially from that of natives in ways that pose difficulties for standard theories of migration. In particular, immigrants cluster geographically and are often employed together. Immigrant earnings differ by origin and time spent in the United States, even after controlling for education and experience. A large fraction of immigrants eventually returns home, even to low-wage countries. This article offers a theory of international migration based on assortative matching under imperfect information that accounts for a broad range of these empirical regularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the paradigm of a rational individual acting on the earnings-enhancing benefits of migration. Selectivity correction; Choices of migrants and nonmigrants; Investment in a proposition that has a high probability of yielding negative returns.