Uses data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the U.S. and Mexico to estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. It documents how remittances to Mexico serve an insurance role to smooth consumption across the border. During expansions in the destination economy, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk migration cost. During recessions, established migrants are deterred from returning to their country of origin, which places a downward pressure on the wage of native unskilled workers. The authors quantify the welfare implications of immigration policies for the destination economy. Illustrations. A print on demand pub.
The number of immigrants in the US science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce and among recipients of advanced STEM degrees at US universities has increased in recent decades. In light of the current public debate about immigration, there is a need for evidence on the economic impacts of immigrants on the STEM workforce and on innovation. Using new data and state-of-the-art empirical methods, this volume examines various aspects of the relationships between immigration, innovation, and entrepreneurship, including the effects of changes in the number of immigrants and their skill composition on the rate of innovation; the relationship between high-skilled immigration and entrepreneurship; and the differences between immigrant and native entrepreneurs. It presents new evidence on the postgraduation migration patterns of STEM doctoral recipients, in particular the likelihood these graduates will return to their home country. This volume also examines the role of the US higher education system and of US visa policy in attracting foreign students for graduate study and retaining them after graduation.
This book explores the criminalisation of irregular migration in Europe. In particular, it investigates the meaning, purpose, and consequences of criminalising unauthorised entry and stay. From a theoretical perspective, the book adds to the debate on the persistence of irregular migration, despite governments’ attempts at deterring it, by taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws from international political economy and criminology. Using Italy and France as case studies, and relying on previously unreleased data and interviews, it argues that criminalisation has no effect on migratory flows, and that this is due to factors including the latter’s structural determinants and the likely creation of substitution effects. Furthermore, criminalisation is found to lead to adverse consequences, including by contributing to vicious cycles of irregularity and insecurity.
Political and scientific debates on migration policies have mostly focused on governments' efforts to control or reduce low-skilled, asylum, and irregular migration or to encourage the return migration of these categories. Less research and constructive discourse has been conducted on the role and effectiveness of policies to attract or retain high-skilled workers. An improved understanding of the drivers and dynamics of high-skilled migration is essential for effective policy-making, as most highly developed and emerging economies experience growing shortages of high-skilled labour supply in certain occupations and sectors, and skilled immigration is often viewed as one way of addressing these. Simplistic assumptions that high-skilled migrants are primarily in pursuit of higher wages raise the expectation that policies which open channels for high-skilled immigration are generally successful. Although many countries have introduced policies aimed at attracting and facilitating the recruitment of high-skilled workers, not all recruitment efforts have had the desired effects, and anecdotal evidence on the effectiveness of these programmes is rather mixed. The reason is that the rather narrow focus on migration policy coincides with a lack of systematic and rigorous consideration of other economic, social, and political drivers of migration, which may be equally - or sometimes even more - important than migration policies per se. A better understanding of migration policies, their making, consequences and limitations, requires a systematic knowledge of the broader economic, social and political structures and their interaction in both origin and destination countries. This book enhances this vibrant field of social scientific enquiry by providing a systematic, multidisciplinary, and global analysis of policies driving international high-skilled migration processes in their interaction with other migration drivers at the individual, city, national, and international level.
This edited collection includes (but is not limited to) contributions in the form of chapters from the participants of the Workshop on the Macroeconomics of Migration at the University of Sheffield in June 2018. Migration is one of the most debated issues currently and is a pervasive feature of our economies. While extensive academic work has looked at the microeconomic aspects of migration, an open question is to better understand the links between migration and macroeconomic aggregates, such as per capita GDP. This book explores this overarching question, which has hit the key political and social debates all over Europe. Countries that are traditionally viewed as hosting economies for immigrants, such as for instance the UK and Germany, are concerned by immigration, while sending countries, such as Southern and Eastern European countries, are concerned by emigration. The contributions in this edited collection analyse empirically and theoretically the challenges international economic migration generates both in sending and receiving countries, thus offering a comprehensive approach to the question asked above. The book looks at several important issues in the current debates related to the labour market effects of migration for natives, the bi-directional relation between taxation and migration, migration and the informal economy, migration and business cycle dynamics, and brain waste. This edited collection will be of interest to academics, practitioners and policy makers who wish to take a closer look at the macroeconomic effects of migration and learn more about the current challenges posed by immigration in some countries and emigration in others.
Migration has become an increasingly important phenomenon for societies, especially given its highly controversial political dimension. The complexity of the migrant integration process and its many varieties present challenges to policymakers who need high-quality information on which to base decisions. Nowhere is this necessity more pressing than in the development of relevant tax rules that meet the basic requirements of efficiency and equity. Moreover, the ascent of the so-called emerging economies coupled with the stagnation of the richest economies of the world implies reform of the current competition-based international tax regime and the adoption of a more cooperative paradigm. This important and timely book, for the first time in such depth, explores such aspects of the problem as the following: - migration for tax reasons, especially corporate "inversions" (change in corporate residence for tax purposes); - tax consequences related to individuals who receive free or subsidized education in one country and profit from it in another; - taxing cross-border retirement income; and - migration-related aspects of tax preferential treatment of the elderly. With particular emphasis on the effects and opportunities created by the changing international tax regime - and with attention to the role of tax treaties and recent court cases - chapters by well known tax experts present evidence on the consequences of migration in all its facets and simulate the effects of several recently enacted and proposed changes in tax law in European countries, the United States, and other jurisdictions. The grounded propositions and recommendations offered in this deeply informed book will allow policymakers to draft tax-residence rules that minimize distortion and promote fairness. The book will also be of interest to tax law practitioners and other tax specialists, migration experts, and academics investigating one of the crucial political issues of our time.
The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration finds that the long-term impact of immigration on the wages and employment of native-born workers overall is very small, and that any negative impacts are most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born high school dropouts. First-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born, but the second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. This report concludes that immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S. More than 40 million people living in the United States were born in other countries, and almost an equal number have at least one foreign-born parent. Together, the first generation (foreign-born) and second generation (children of the foreign-born) comprise almost one in four Americans. It comes as little surprise, then, that many U.S. residents view immigration as a major policy issue facing the nation. Not only does immigration affect the environment in which everyone lives, learns, and works, but it also interacts with nearly every policy area of concern, from jobs and the economy, education, and health care, to federal, state, and local government budgets. The changing patterns of immigration and the evolving consequences for American society, institutions, and the economy continue to fuel public policy debate that plays out at the national, state, and local levels. The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration assesses the impact of dynamic immigration processes on economic and fiscal outcomes for the United States, a major destination of world population movements. This report will be a fundamental resource for policy makers and law makers at the federal, state, and local levels but extends to the general public, nongovernmental organizations, the business community, educational institutions, and the research community.
During the 2008 financial crisis, the possible changes in remittance-sending behavior and potential avenues to alleviate a probable decline in remittance flows became concerns. This book brings together a wide array of studies from around the world focusing on the recent trends in remittance flows. The authors have gathered a select group of researchers from academic, practitioner and policy making bodies. Thus the book can be seen as a conversation between the different stakeholders involved in or affected by remittance flows globally. The book is a first-of-its-kind attempt to analyze the effects of an ongoing crisis on remittance flows globally. Data analyzed by the book reveals three trends. First, The more diversified the destinations and the labour markets for migrants the more resilient are the remittances sent by migrants. Second, the lower the barriers to labor mobility, the stronger the link between remittances and economic cycles in that corridor. And third, as remittances proved to be relatively resilient in comparison to private capital flows, many remittance-dependent countries became even more dependent on remittance inflows for meeting external financing needs. There are several reasons for migration and remittances to be relatively resilient to the crisis. First, remittances are sent by the stock (cumulative flows) of migrants, not only by the recent arrivals (in fact, recent arrivals often do not remit as regularly as they must establish themselves in their new homes). Second, contrary to expectations, return migration did not take place as expected even as the financial crisis reduced employment opportunities in the US and Europe. Third, in addition to the persistence of migrant stocks that lent persistence to remittance flows, existing migrants often absorbed income shocks and continued to send money home. Fourth, if some migrants did return or had the intention to return, they tended to take their savings back to their country of origin. Finally, exchange rate movements during the crisis caused unexpected changes in remittance behavior: as local currencies of many remittance recipient countries depreciated sharply against the US dollar, they produced a “sale” effect on remittance behavior of migrants in the US and other destination countries.
