Isolating the Network Effect of Immigrants on Trade

Abstract

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The impact of migration on trade

“…Individuals employed directly in business network occupations are found to produce more than double the value of trade compared with average migrants when immigrants who actually participate in a trade−business network are identified in data that cover 89 destination countries and 233 countries of origin [9]. A 10% increase in the average stock of immigrants implies that one additional immigrant generates an extra $25,516 of imports, which increases by an additional $35,124 if all additional immigrants were to be employed in business network occupations.…”

Essays on Migration: Nexus with Policy, Trade, and Development

“…From the seminal works of Gould (1994) and Head and Ries (1998) to more recent articles such as Aleksynska andPeri (2011), Kugler andRapoport (2011) and Hatzigeorgiou and Lodefalk (2011), all point to the same general conclusion: migrants do indeed promote international trade between the destination and origin countries. The robust positive relationship between human and goods mobility across studies is especially noteworthy given the variety of approaches employed and the number of countries studied.…”

“…As Aleksynska and Peri (2011) points out, factors such as average number of migrants in the sample and the specific measure of migrant stock contribute to these differentiated estimates. My measure based on the matrícula consular includes some migrants who may not be economically active, and does not classify migrants based on education level, which most likely further attenuates estimates as mentioned in Kugler and Rapoport (2011).…”

“…Column 1 of Aleksynska and Peri (2011), it is worthwhile to signal that these numbers are not necessarily incompatible. As Aleksynska and Peri (2011) points out, factors such as average number of migrants in the sample and the specific measure of migrant stock contribute to these differentiated estimates.…”

“…My estimates are those corresponding to the preferred base sample. Other articles' estimates are the following: the OLS fixed effects result for Aleksynska and Peri (2011), the benchmark OLS result for APR, the differenced result for Felbermayr and Jung (2009), the Tobit result for HS (2005), and the full sample result for White (2007). Figures for column 3 are generated according to the reported elasticities, multiplying the respective elasticity by the ratio of average state-state exports to average state-state stock of migrants; ---denotes that I found neither the corresponding summary statistics nor the estimate of the annual value of extra exports generated per migrant.…”