Quantifying the Effects of the Provincial Nominee Programs.

To encourage more even dispersion of economic immigrants throughout Canada, the federal and various provincial governments have developed the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs). In this paper, we provide an overview of these programs and assess their impact on the flow of immigrants to smaller provinces, which have struggled to attract and retain skilled newcomers. We find, after controlling for provincial economic conditions, that the Nominee Programs of Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick were associated with significant increases in immigration flows to these provinces. We also find that one-year retentions rates of immigrants did not decrease for any province after the introduction of the PNPs. In fact, retention rates for immigrants through Nominee Programs were higher in most provinces than for economic class immigrants arriving through the federal programs. We conclude that PNPs were effective as a means of both attracting and retaining immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]