A Global View of Cross-Border Migration

Giovanni, Julian di; Levchenko, Andrei A.; Ortega, Francesc

doi:10.1111/jeea.12110

“…Decades passed before a series of follow-up studies confirmed the broad magnitude of the Hamilton and Whalley results with more refined macro models (Moses andLetnes 2004, 2005;Iregui 2005;Walmsley and Winters 2005;Klein andVentura 2007, 2009;van der Mensbrugghe and Roland-Holst 2009;surveyed in Clemens 2011). The mag-nitude of these estimates has been corroborated in a series of recent studies (Benhabib and Jovanovic 2012;Kennan 2013;di Giovanni et al 2015;Bradford 2015). Barriers to labor mobility, then, could cost the world on the order of half of potential production-leaving "trillion dollar bills on the sidewalk" (Clemens 2011).…”

Section: Macro Evidencesupporting

confidence: 54%

The New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment

Clemens

¹

,

Pritchett

²

2016

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S ABSTRACTThe New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment * For decades, migration economics has stressed the effects of migration restrictions on income distribution in the host country. Recently the literature has taken a new direction by estimating the costs of migration restrictions to global economic efficiency. In contrast, a new strand of research posits that migration restrictions could be not only desirably redistributive, but in fact globally efficient. This is the new economic case for migration restrictions. The case rests on the possibility that without tight restrictions on migration, migrants from poor countries could transmit low productivity ("A" or Total Factor Productivity) to rich countriesoffsetting efficiency gains from the spatial reallocation of labor from low to high-productivity places. We provide a novel assessment, proposing a simple model of dynamically efficient migration under productivity transmission and calibrating it with new macro and micro data. In this model, the case for efficiency-enhancing migration barriers rests on three parameters: transmission, the degree to which origin-country total factor productivity is embodied in migrants; assimilation, the degree to which migrants' productivity determinants become like natives' over time in the host country; and congestion, the degree to which transmission and assimilation change at higher migrant stocks. On current evidence about the magnitudes of these parameters, dynamically efficient policy would not imply open borders but would imply relaxations on current restrictions. That is, the new efficiency case for some migration restrictions is empirically a case against the stringency of current restrictions.JEL Classification: F22, J61, O11

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“…For example, the fall in the number of varieties available for consumption (Krugman, 1980) and productivity decreases due to fall in competition from abroad (Melitz, 2003), together with the presence of vertical production chains in the UK (Melitz and Redding, 2014), will most likely increase such losses. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, ceasing migration flows between UK and other EU countries, one of the EU most basic principles, will also tend to decrease welfare not only in the source region but also in the destination one (di Giovanni, Levchenko, and Ortega, 2012). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Costs and Benefits of Leaving the EU

Ottaviano

¹

,

Pessoa

²

,

Sampson

³

2014

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What would be the economic effects of the UK leaving the European Union on living standards of British people? We focus on the effects of trade on welfare net of lower fiscal transfers to the EU. We use a standard quantitative static general equilibrium trade model with multiple sectors, countries and intermediates, as in Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2013). Static losses range between 1.13% and 3.09% of GDP, depending on the assumptions used in our counterfactual scenarios. Including dynamic effects could more than double such losses.

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“…They find that, from a global perspective, migration ought to be much larger than it is today. Di Giovanni, Levchenko and Ortega (2014) quantify the welfare effects of international migration in a model that carefully incorporates total factor productivity and skill differences, within a Melitz (2003) framework of international trade with a home market effect. Docquier, Ozden, and Peri (2014) evaluate wage and employment gains from immigration and emigration in all OECD countries.…”

Section: Have Different Implications On the Labor Market Effects Of Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration, Search, and Redistribution: A Quantitative Assessment of Native Welfare

Battisti¹,

Felbermayr²,

Peri³

et al. 2014

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. We study the effects of immigration on native welfare in a general equilibrium model featuring two skill types, search frictions, wage bargaining, and a redistributive welfare state. Our quantitative analysis suggests that, in all 20 countries studied, immigration attenuates the effects of search frictions. These gains tend to outweigh the welfare costs of redistribution. Immigration has increased native welfare in almost all countries. Both high-skilled and lowskilled natives benefit in two thirds of countries, contrary to what models without search frictions predict. Average total gains from immigration are 1.25% and 1.00% for high and low skilled natives, respectively. JEL-Code: F220, J610, J640. Terms of use: Documents inKeywords: immigration, search, labor market frictions, fiscal redistribution, cross-country comparisons. Michele Battisti

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A Global View of Cross-Border Migration

Cited by 124 publications

References 73 publications

The New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment

The New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment

The Costs and Benefits of Leaving the EU

Immigration, Search, and Redistribution: A Quantitative Assessment of Native Welfare

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