Do stock prices react to immigration restrictions? Evidence from an event study in Switzerland

This article tests the effects of sudden immigration restrictions on stock prices of firms in industries with high shares of immigrants. It estimates the abnormal returns as a function of the share of migrants by industry. To do so, one specific event – a referendum on migration policy with an unexpected outcome – that will potentially cut off Swiss listed companies from the supply of foreign labour is studied. Although operating in an industry with a high share of immigrants is associated with lower returns, the effect is not very strong, which indicates that investors seem to trust the government to leave some leeway in the implementation of the constitutional amendment that was voted on.     

The selection of migrants and returnees in Romania

This paper uses census and survey data to identify the wage earning ability and the selection of recent Romanian migrants and returnees on observable characteristics. We construct measures of selection across skill groups and estimate the average and the skill‐specific premium for migration and return for three typical destinations of Romanian migrants after 1990. Once we account for migration costs, we find evidence that the selection and sorting of migrants are driven by different returns to skills in countries of destination. Our identification strategy for the effects of work experience abroad permits a cautious causal interpretation of the premium to return migration. This premium increases with migrants' skills and drives the positive selection of returnees relative to non‐migrants. Based on the compatibility of the results with rationality in the migration decisions, we simulate a rational‐agent model of education, migration and return. Our results suggest that for a source country like Romania relatively high rates of temporary migration might have positive long‐run effects on average skills and wages.     

Immigration from the former Soviet Union to Israel: Who is coming when?

Average education of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel declined during the 1990s. We suggest that this is because the returns to investment in Israeli human capital increase in the amount of imported human capital. Thus, the more educated invest more, and therefore have an incentive to spend a longer share of their working life in Israel. This translates into early migration. Using data from the 1995 Israeli Census and the 1995-1998 samples of the Israeli Labor Force Survey, we test our hypothesis and find that being high skilled initiates early migration only for migrants participating in the labor market.     

Migration,self‐selection and income distributions

Self‐selection in rural–urban migration is examined using three datasets from rural and urban China in 2002. We construct a migrant sample including both migrants who converted their hukou status from rural to urban (permanent migrants) and those who did not (temporary migrants). We find a strong positive selection for permanent migrants, but the selection for temporary migrants is ambiguous. We reach these conclusions by comparing migrants' counterfactual wage densities, assuming they are paid as rural local workers, to actual wage densities of rural local workers. Our results imply that permanent migration has negative effects on rural human capital accumulation and income levels.     

Unemployment and Migration: Does Moving Help?

The migration behaviour of the unemployed in Finland is analysed in terms of the causal effect of moving on individual employment status. In 1994, 17 percent of the labour force was unemployed and the unemployment rate exhibited a very slow decline in 1994–1996. Over half of those who were unemployed at the end of 1994 were still unemployed two years later. The propensity to find a job is somewhat greater among migrants. However, the positive effect of moving diminishes once other personal characteristics are accounted for. Moreover, when controlling for endogenous migrant selectivity, an insignificant or even negative effect on employment status emerges. This indicates that the relatively better "quality" of the migrants (e.g. age, education, human capital and unobserved ability), rather than the act of moving itself, causes an improvement in re–employability. Hence, migration alone may not be a very effective mechanism for alleviating individual unemployment.
JEL classification : J 61; J 64     

社会网的教育溢出、个体教育回报与农民工工资——基于代际的比较研究

采用RUMIC2009实地调查数据,对农民工社会网的教育溢出和教育回报进行代际比较的研究发现：以关系最亲密的三个关系人为代表的农民工社会网存在显著的教育溢出效应。进一步研究发现,农民工社会网的教育溢出效应和其自身的教育回报存在显著的代际差异：第一代农民工社会网络的教育溢出和自身的教育回报都显著高于新生代农民工。在进行了内生性和稳健性检验后,上述结论仍然成立。这一研究对于新型城镇化背景下新老两代农民工的替代对产业转型升级和城市社区建设的推进政策制定具有参考意义。     

Sequential migration theory and evidence from Peru

"The standard human capital model of labor migration has been successful in explaining several empirical regularities of the migration process. However, there are a number of empirical facts that have not yet been explained or empirically tested; among them, that migrants usually perform more than one move in their lifetime; return migration accounts for a very important share of total migration rates; and there is a high positive correlation between in- and out-migration rates in the more advantageous regions. This paper presents both a simple model explaining these facts and an empirical analysis using data from Peru."     

Migration,trade and spillover effects

This paper identifies a new channel through which migrants can affect the import demand of goods in the host country. In migrating from origin to destination country, migrants observe a change in the price of the bundle of consumable goods. In particular, the migration decision can imply a reduction in the price of imported goods for the consumption bundle of migrants: emigration towards less (tariff) protected countries allows the consumption of products that were prohibitively protected in the origin countries of migrants. To test this channel we estimate the import demand effect of migrant groups coming from third high (tariff) protected countries. Our empirical results strongly confirm this channel and suggest a new perspective about how migration can affect welfare and trade in destination countries.     

Are migrants more skilled than non‐migrants? Repeat,return, and same‐employer migrants

Abstract.  I examine the determinants of inter‐state migration of adults within western Germany, using the German Socio‐Economic Panel from 1984–2000. Migrants who do not change employers represent one‐fifth of all migrants and have higher education and pre‐move wages than non‐migrants. Skilled workers thus have a low‐cost migration avenue that has not been considered in the previous literature. Other migrants are heterogeneous and not unambiguously more skilled than non‐migrants. I confirm that long‐distance migrants are more skilled than short‐distance migrants, as predicted by theory, and I show that return migrants are a mix of successes and failures. Most repeat migration is return migration. JEL classification: J6     

The propensity to return: Theory and evidence for the Italian brain drain

Return migration is the positive counterpart of the brain drain. The effects of the brain drain in Italy could be negative: this paper shows that highly skilled migrants decide not to return to their native country.     

Temporary and permanent migrant selection: Theory and evidence of ability‐search cost dynamics

We integrate two workhorses of the labor literature, the Roy and search models, to illustrate the implications of migration duration—specifically, whether it is temporary or permanent—for patterns of selection. Consistent with our stylized model, we show that temporary migrants are intermediately selected on education, with weaker selection on cognitive ability. In contrast, permanent migration is associated with strong positive selection on both education and ability, as it involves finer employee–employer matching and offers greater returns to experience. Networks are also more valuable for permanent migration, where search costs are higher. Labor market frictions explain observed network–skill interactions.     

Search, migration, and urban land use: The case of transportation policies

We develop a search-matching model with rural-urban migration and an explicit land market. Wages, job creation, urban housing prices are endogenous and we characterize the steady-state equilibrium. We then consider three different policies: a transportation policy that improves the public transport system in the city, an entry-cost policy that encourages investment in the city and a restricting-migration policy that imposes some costs on migrants. We show that all these policies can increase urban employment but the transportation policy has much more drastic effects. This is because a decrease in commuting costs has both a direct positive effect on land rents, which discourages migrants to move to the city, and a direct negative effect on urban wages, which reduces job creation and thus migration. When these two effects are combined with search frictions, the interactions between the land and the labor markets have amplifying positive effects on urban employment. Thus, improving the transport infrastructure in cities can increase urban employment despite the induced migration from rural areas.     

Remittances and return migration

This paper utilizes survey data of return migrants to analyze the determinants of remittances sent while the migrants were abroad. We approach our research question from the perspective of three sending countries in the Maghreb, namely Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. We investigate the remittance behavior using the migrants’ conditions before migration as well as during the migration experience. Using a two‐part model, we show that the decision to remit and the amount remitted depend on a combination of different migrant characteristics and reasons for migration as well as the form of migration. More importantly, we also consider if the remittance behavior is dependent on the type of return: “decided” or “compelled.” We show that the two groups have different incentives to remit, which can help explain the link between type of migrants and their remittance behavior.     

On a Variation in the Economic Performance of Migrants by their Home Country’s Wage

Although the economic performance of migrants in the receiving country undoubtedly depends on qualifications, it is also affected by inclinations. Given the probability of return migration, a behavioural link is established between the incentive of migrants to save in their country of destination and the prevailing wage rate in their home country. It is shown that migrants coming from a low‐wage country optimally save more than migrants from a high‐wage country. Policy and research implications suggested by this savings behaviour are alluded to.     

Estimating the Income Gain of Seasonal Labor Migration

Male seasonal labor migration has become an increasing phenomenon globally and particularly for Armenia. This study finds that the monthly income gains for seasonal migrants from Armenia to Russia are about US$480 relative to only US$50 in the case of non‐migration. Individual panel data based on a novel household survey allow controlling for a variety of socio‐economic characteristics. Propensity score matching combined with difference‐in‐differences addresses potential endogenous self‐selection into migration. This paper finds negative selection based on education, employment, and pre‐migration income. This is reflected by a low premium for skills in Russia relative to Armenia, luring seasonal migrants into low‐skill jobs, mainly in the construction sector. The results identify seasonal labor migration as an attractive opportunity to escape unemployment, especially for the unskilled labor force. Therefore, seasonal migration has become an increasingly important source of income for households (through remittances) from low‐income countries and helps eradicate poverty.     

ILLEGAL MIGRANTS, TOURISM AND WELFARE: A TRADE THEORETIC APPROACH

Abstract.  Many countries receive illegal migrants but are reluctant to accept them due to possible negative externalities. We provide a rationale for not policing illegal migration by linking it to the tourism industry. By paying illegal migrants less than local workers, the relative price of the non-traded goods is shown to be lower than it would be in the absence of such workers. An expansion in tourist trade, under certain intensity conditions, necessarily raises resident welfare and employment. This tourist boom necessarily lowers the welfare of the illegal migrants. It is established that an increase in tourism increases the supply of illegal migrants.     

The effect of rural labor migration on poverty alleviation: a village-level study in China

The construction of the new socialist countryside is being carried out in China nowadays. Although lots of successful experience has been gotten, different problems occur in various regions yet. To analyze the relationships among rural labor migration, poverty alleviation and characteristics of migrants is important in considering the effect of rural labor migration on the construction of the new socialist countryside. Available sampling and typical case study are adopted and 236 questionnaires are collected from[bur villages in northwest GuangxL China, Daxin Lixin, Longhe and Yongchang. We analyze the rural labor migration status, characteristics of migrants, remittance situation and income, household income and the ratio of remittance income to total household income. A bout 2/3 of the households have migrants in surveyed villages. And nearly half of the migration households have only one fam- ily member as migrants in the four villages. The migrants mainly comprise male and the younger, with the education level of junior middte school and higher More than half of the migrants are employed in Guangdong Province. But the characteristics of migrants in Yongchang are more diverse. The rural labor migration in the village is extremely active and extensive. And over 60% of the household with family members as migrants have remittance income. The rate in Yongchang is extremely high (80%). And the income of households with migrants getting remittance income significantly higher than their counterparts. More than half of their income comes from remittance as far as the former kind of household is concerned And in Yongchang, the rate is nearly 80%. The conclusion is that rural labor migration is popular and extensive in lots of villages. And the migration and remittance play an important role in rural household income, especially in some poor villages. For this kind of village, the rural labor migration may be some "compulsory course" in rural development. And the rural labor emigration is an essential way in poverty al-leviation. This is the first step in the construction of the new socialist countryside.     

Heterogeneity in the economic returns to schooling among Chinese rural–urban migrants, 2002–07

This paper analyses the returns to schooling among Chinese rural migrants using data from the 2002 and 2007 China Household Income Project. Our non‐parametric estimates show substantial heterogeneity in the schooling rates of return among migrant workers. While the returns to schooling for the overall sample have increased over time, this result is driven by the substantial increases in the schooling coefficients of female migrants. We expect the endogeneity biases in the estimated schooling returns to be decreasing after considering the change in the ability distribution of migrant workers during 2002–07.     

Income maximization and the selection and sorting of international migrants

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.     

The Role of Migrant Networks in Labor Migration: The Case of China

Using recent household survey data from rural China, this article investigates determinants of labor migration, paying special attention to the role of migrant networks. Migrant networks are measured by the number of early migrants from the village, comprised of experienced migrants who continue their migratory activities and return migrants. Observations of early migrants are excluded from regression analyses to enable identification. Results show that experienced migrants have a positive and significant effect on subsequent migration, but return migrants do not. This implies that migrant networks are important, and their effects materialize through practical assistance in the process of migration. (JEL J61 , O15 , Z13 )