Aggregate Fluctuations and International Migration

In this paper, we study the role of short‐run factors such as business cycles or changes in employment rates in explaining international migration flows. First, we derive a model of optimal migration choice predicting that short‐run economic fluctuations trigger migration flows on top of the impact exerted by long‐run factors. Second, we empirically test the magnitude of the effect of these short‐run factors on migration flows. Our results indicate that both aggregate fluctuations and employment rates affect migration flows. Third, we provide evidence that the Schengen Agreement and the euro significantly increased the international mobility of workers between the member countries.uuuü     

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.     

The Influence of Climate on Migration

This paper provides an overview of research into the phenomenon of whether climatic factors, such as temperature and weather‐related disasters, affect the decision to migrate. As an example, we examine migration flows from 198 countries to Australia for the time span from 1980 to 2015. Our results show that temperature does not have a robust, significant effect on migration flows, while weather‐related disasters do significantly affect flows to Australia.     

The distance bias in natural disaster reporting – empirical evidence for the United States

Whenever governments or international organizations provide aid in the aftermath of natural disasters, they typically justify this support by humanitarian motives. Previous empirical research found that media reports on natural disasters have a systematic impact on the amount of provided disaster aid. While this is unproblematic as long as media reports are unbiased and thus deliver an undistorted picture of the occurrence and severity of worldwide occurring disasters, systematic reporting biases would lead to distorted aid flows and perhaps other distortions like an insufficient perception of a region in international organizations. Based on data on three US news shows we show that disaster reporting is subject to a distance bias, e.g., the likelihood that a disaster is covered by the media depends on the distance between the country where the media are located and the country where the disasters occur. We also find evidence that besides the distance bias the state of economic development of a country and importance as export markets have a positive effect on the probability that US news shows are reporting on a natural disaster. As a result, international aid flows might be systematically biased and not distributed in line with the needs of the victims.     

Do Borders Matter? Evidence from Japanese Regional Net Capital Flows

Are international borders barriers to capital flows? We use evidence on net capital flows among regions within a country as a benchmark. For this purpose we develop a data set of saving and investment rates of Japanese prefectures. We find that the correlation between saving and investment rates is higher for OECD countries than for Japanese regions in both time‐series and cross‐sectional data. After controlling for factors that are expected to contribute to a positive correlation in the absence of barriers to capital flows, we conclude that primarily long‐term capital flows are hindered by national borders, as reflected in the cross‐sectional evidence.     

Pane e Cioccolata: The Impact of Native Attitudes on Return Migration

This paper addresses the link between native attitudes and return migration. We exploit the variation in xenophobia using information on media consumption by migrants in Italy. A widely documented crime provides a quasi‐experimental setting to identify the impact of Italian attitudes on migrants’ settlement intentions. Our results suggest a significant effect of anti‐immigrant attitudes on the intended duration of stay in the host country. The impact is more pronounced for low‐skilled migrants, which has consequences for how migration affects the long‐run convergence between sending and destination countries.     

International Trade,Technology, and the Wage Gap: Evidence from Granger‐causality Tests*

In this paper, we propose an alternative approach under which to examine the source of the increased wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers in US manufacturing. Rather than imposing the assumptions inherent in a given structural form, we posit a long‐run equilibrium relationship between international trade, technology, and the wage premium using a vector error‐correction model. We first test for the existence of a long‐run relationship using cointegration tests. If a cointegrating relationship is found, we then conduct tests on the direction of the long‐run relationship and of Granger causality. We apply our approach to each two‐digit and four‐digit SIC industry and find evidence in support of international trade being an important source of the wage gap. Our results suggest that it is premature to dismiss international trade as a possible suspect behind the rising wage premium.     

Migrant networks and foreign direct investment

Although there exists a sizeable literature documenting the importance of ethnic networks for international trade, little attention has been devoted to studying the effects of migrants on foreign direct investment (FDI). The presence of migrants can stimulate FDI by promoting information flows across international borders and by serving as a contract enforcement mechanism. This paper investigates the link between the presence of migrants in the US and US FDI in the migrants' countries of origin, taking into account the potential endogeneity concerns. The results suggest that US FDI abroad is positively correlated with the presence of migrants from the host country. The data further indicate that the relationship between FDI and migration is stronger for migrants with tertiary education.     

Selective Immigration Policies and Wages Inequality

We quantify the overall impact of immigration on native wages in France from 1990 to 2010. Our short‐run simulations indicate that immigration has decreased native wages by 0.6%. We find on average no impact of immigration on wages in the long run. However, we show that the long‐run effects of immigration on wages are detrimental to high‐skilled native workers and benefits to low‐skilled native workers. Our structural estimation allows us to evaluate the impact of “selective” migration policies. In particular, we find that selective immigration policies toward highly educated workers reduce the wage dispersion of French native workers.     

International Bank Portfolios: Short‐ and Long‐Run Responses to Macroeconomic Conditions

International bank portfolios constitute a large component of international country portfolios. Yet, banks' response to international macroeconomic conditions remains largely unexplored. We use a novel dataset on banks' international portfolios to answer three questions. First, what are the long‐run determinants of banks' international portfolios? Second, how do banks' international portfolios adjust to short‐run macroeconomic developments? Third, does the speed of adjustment change with the degree of financial integration? We find that, in the long‐run, market size has a positive impact on foreign assets and liabilities. An increase in the interest differential between the home and the foreign economy lowers foreign assets and increases foreign liabilities. Foreign trade has a positive impact on international bank portfolios, which is independent from the effect of other macroeconomic variables. Short‐run dynamics show heterogeneity across countries, but these dynamics can partly be explained with gravity‐type variables.     

Remittances,transaction costs,and informality

Recorded workers' remittances to developing countries reached $167 billion in 2005, bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development. In this paper, we explore the determinants of remittances and their associated transaction costs. We find that recorded remittances depend positively on the stock of migrants and negatively on transfer costs and exchange rate restrictions. In turn, transfer costs are lower when financial systems are more developed and exchange rates less volatile. The negative impact of transactions costs on remittances suggests that migrants either refrain from sending money home or else remit through informal channels when costs are high. We provide evidence from household surveys supportive of a sizeable informal sector.     

Developing Countries’ Net-migration: The Impact of Economic Opportunities,Disasters, Conflicts,and Political Instability

We provide regressions for the net immigration flows of developing countries. We show that (i) savings finance emigration and worker remittances serve to make staying rather than migrating possible; (ii) lagged dependent migration flows have a negative sign in the presence of migration stock variables; (iii) stocks of migrants in six OECD countries and in the developing countries have non-linear effects. Some of the non-linear effects of the economic variables vanish if indicators for disasters, conflicts and political instability are taken into account but new ones come in for these latter variables.     

A closer look at the determinants of international migration: decomposing cultural distance

Using a modified gravity model and three measures of cultural distance, we employ the zero-inflated negative binomial estimation technique to examine the impact of cultural distance on international migration flows. We confirm the finding of prior studies that there exists a negative relationship between composite measures of cultural distance and immigrant flows. Extending the literature, we decompose our composite cultural distance measures into their component dimensions to examine potential variability in the influences of individual dimensions on international migration. We find the cultural dimensions that reflect individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and perceived gender roles are typically more influential in determining immigrant flows than are other cultural dimensions.     

Temporal causality and the dynamics of democracy,emigration and real income in Fiji

This study is the first to explore temporal causality between democracy, emigration and real income in Fiji within a multivariate cointegration model. We find three long run relationships between democracy, emigration and real income. In the long run there is evidence that migration and democracy Granger cause real GDP in Fiji; real GDP and democracy Granger cause migration from Fiji and that real GDP and migration Granger cause democracy in Fiji. In the short run we find unidirectional Granger causality running from migration to real GDP and from democracy to real GDP, but neutrality between democracy and migration in the short run. We also extend the analysis to examine the degree of exogeneity of the variables beyond the sample period through considering the decomposition of variance and impulse response functions.     

Who stays,who goes,who returns?

We study the determinants of East–West migration within Germany during the period 1990–2006, using administrative data, the German Microcensus and the German Socio‐Economic Panel. We find that in addition to income prospects and employment status, two well‐known determinants of migration, psychological and social factors play an important role in determining the migration decision. Men and women move from East to West in proportionate numbers, but among individuals who lived in the East in 1989 women are more likely to migrate. The migrant body in the second wave of migration, starting in the late 1990s, is increasingly composed of young, educated people. By focusing on differences between temporary and permanent migrants, we find that older and single individuals are more likely to return East than stay permanently in the West, compared with younger and married individuals. Finally, the life satisfaction of permanent migrants increases significantly after a move, while that of temporary migrants remains essentially flat.     

IMPACT OF EXCHANGE RATE UNCERTAINTY ON COMMODITY TRADE BETWEEN THE US AND AUSTRALIA*

Exchange rate volatility is said to have negative or positive effect on trade flows. Previous studies that considered the impact of exchange rate uncertainty on the trade flows of Australia employed trade data either between Australia and rest of the world or between Australia and her few major trading partners. They were unable to discover any significant impact. In this paper when we disaggregate trade data by commodity between Australia and one of her major trading partners, the US, we find exchange rate volatility to have short‐run effects on trade flows of most industries. However, the short‐run effects last into long run, only in limited cases, though more in export commodities than import ones.     

Long‐run Lunacy,Short‐run Sanity: a Simple Model of Trade with Labor Market Turnover*

It is often argued that international trade is all about long‐run relationships. In this paper, we argue that this view is flawed when factor markets are characterized by turnover. Toward that end, we provide a simple dynamic model of trade with labor market turnover and show that the relationship between the economy's short‐run and long‐run behavior is more complex than in traditional trade models. For example, in the short run, the economy may produce outside of its long‐run frontier. We show that focusing on long‐run relationships can lead one to draw faulty policy conclusions, while focusing on its short‐run behavior restores sanity. The implication is that in the presence of factor market turnover, international trade issues can only be understood by studying the entire dynamic path of the economy. Long‐run relationships should be ignored.     

International migration and trade agreements: The new role of PTAs

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and bilateral migration flows. Building on the empirical literature on the determinants of migration flows, I estimate a modified gravity model to assess the role of PTAs and their content on bilateral migration flows. Using a sample of 29 OECD destination countries over the period 1998–2008, I show a strong positive effect of PTAs on bilateral migration flows. I find that the content of PTAs also matters: when visa‐and‐asylum and labour market related provisions are included in PTAs, this further stimulates bilateral migration flows. Different estimation strategies, including instrumental variables, are employed to address the potential endogeneity bias problems related to PTAs and their content.     

Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country? Evidence from Mali

This paper explores the link between return migration and political outcomes in the origin country, using the case study of Mali. We use electoral and census data at the locality level to investigate the role of return migration on participation rates and electoral competitiveness. First, we run OLS and IV estimations for the 2009 municipal election, controlling for current emigration and using historical and distance variables as instruments for return migration and current emigration. Second, we build a panel dataset combining the 1998 and 2009 censuses and the electoral results for the municipal ballots of those two years to control for the potential time-invariant unobservable characteristics of the localities. We find a positive impact of the stock of return migrants on participation rates and on electoral competitiveness, which mainly stems from returnees from non-African countries. Finally, we show that the impact of returnees on turnout goes beyond their own participation, and that they affect more electoral outcomes in areas where non-migrants are poorly educated, which we interpret as evidence of a diffusion of political norms from returnees to non-migrants.     

Offshoring and skill overlap: An empirical investigation

Conventional international trade theory predicts that bilateral offshoring flows will be highest when two countries have very different relative factor endowments. In contrast, the new trade theory contends that offshoring is more likely to exist when countries’ relative factor endowments are similar. This paper empirically tests the relationship between offshoring and relative factor endowments, measured by the skill overlap index between two countries and finds evidence that there is an inverted U‐shape relationship. Our empirical results predict that the rise in educational attainment in China will motivate U.S. multinationals to send their tasks to China in the short run; over the long run, however, U.S. multinationals will have fewer incentives to send their tasks to China. This finding sheds new light on the current trade tensions between the United States and China and has implications for trade policy.