A B S T R A C TThis paper quantifies the effect of global migration on the welfare of non-migrant OECD citizens. We develop an integrated, multi-country model that accounts for the interactions between the labor market, fiscal, and market size effects of migration, as well as for trade relations between countries. The model is calibrated to match the economic and demographic characteristics of the 34 OECD countries and the rest of the world, as well as trade flows between them in the year 2010. We show that recent migration flows have been beneficial for 69% of the non-migrant OECD population, and for 83% of non-migrant citizens of the 22 richest OECD countries. Winners are mainly residing in traditional immigration countries; their gains are substantial and are essentially due to the entry of immigrants from non-OECD countries. Although labor market and fiscal effects are non-negligible in some countries, the greatest source of gain comes from the market size effect, i.e. the change in the variety of goods available to consumers.
This paper provides empirical evidence that product diversity drove a part of the evolution of consumers’ spending in the US over the 1993–2018 period. The change in the set of varieties available led consumers to increase by 1.19% the share of their budget allocated to a sector subject to the average variety expansion over that period. I exploit the exogenous change in the range of products available due to the growth of international trade to identify the causal relation. Using this identification strategy, I show that through changes in product diversity, international trade has a sizable effect on the evolution of patterns of consumption in a country, especially relative to the price effect.
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