Diasporas

Abstract

a b s t r a c tMigration flows are shaped by a complex combination of self-selection and out-selection mechanisms, both of which are affected by the presence of a diaspora abroad. In this paper, we analyze how existing diasporas (the stock of people born in a country and living in another one) affect the size and human-capital structure of current bilateral migration flows. Our analysis exploits a bilateral data set on international migration by educational attainment from 195 countries to 30 OECD countries in 1990 and 2000. Based on simple microfoundations and controlling for various determinants of migration, we found that diasporas increase migration flows and lower their average educational level. Interestingly, diasporas explain majority of the variability of migration flows and selection. This suggests that, without changing the generosity of family reunion programs, education-based selection rules are likely to have moderate impact. Our results are highly robust to the econometric techniques, accounting for the large proportion of zeros and endogeneity problems.

Networks and Selection in International Migration to Spain

“…Our approach is different, however, since a consistent framework for estimating a migration model with panel data is not yet available. 7 We strengthen our causal interpretation by adopting an instrumental variables approach. Historical bilateral migration flows are shown to have significant explanatory power for the size of bilateral ethnic communities even after a relatively long period of time.…”

“…11 As opposed to the standard MNL model used by Beine et al (2011Beine et al ( ,2012, our NMNL modelling framework allows for changes in economic conditions in migration destinations other than j to induce non-uniform effects on the ij-specific bilateral migration rate (12), depending on whether these destinations belong to the same country or region as j. In particular, as shown by McFadden (1984McFadden ( , 1422McFadden ( -1428, the migration rate, m ij /m i , is most sensitive to changes in other destinations in the same region.…”

“…We estimate that a doubling of the size of the ethnic migrant community leads to a rise in future immigration from the same origin by almost 50%, and to a decline in the ratio of high-skilled to low-skilled individuals in this immigration by approximately 30%. 7 Second, unobserved heterogeneity in bilateral migration costs is indeed correlated with the size of the ethnic community abroad. Failing to account for this heterogeneity leads to an upward bias of about 50% in the estimation of the scale effect.…”

“…In terms of focus and econometric approach, our paper is most closely related to the two above-mentioned studies by Beine et al (2011Beine et al ( ,2012, in spite of our novel identification strategy. Beine et al (2011) investigate 6 One might be tempted to advocate the use of panel methods in order to control for the time-invariant component of bilateral migration costs.…”

The wage effects of immigration and emigration

“…Data is missing for a few countries but can be estimated using the CIA world factbook. 7 Labor force data is then split across skill groups using international indicators of education attainment. Here, we follow Docquier and Marfouk (2006) 3.3 Description and summary statistics for our sample Table 1 shows the 1990-2000 ‡ows of immigrants, emigrants and their di¤erence (net immigration) for a set of ten large Western European countries and four reference groups: (i) three Anglo-Saxon non-European countries (US, Canada and Australia) traditionally attracting large numbers of immigrants, (ii) three large Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) with a range of emigration rates, mostly to Western Europe, (iii) two middle income countries with large emigration rates (Mexico and Turkey) and (iv) three non-OECD countries with large immigration rates (Argentina, South Africa and Singapore).…”