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Social Science > Demography

You are looking at 1 - 7 of 7 items for :

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Shifting Perceptions: Unpacking Public Support for Immigrant Workers Integration in the Labor Market
Silvia Albrizio
,
Hippolyte W. Balima
,
Bertrand Gruss
,
Eric Huang
, and
Colombe Ladreit
This paper investigates public perceptions and support for policies aimed at integrating immigrant workers into domestic labor markets. Through large-scale surveys involving 6,300 respondents from Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom, we provide new insights into attitudes toward migrant integration policies and the impact of different information provisions on belief updating. We identify three key factors that shape policy support: pre-existing stereotypes about immigrants, awareness of labor market integration policies for migrants, and, most critically, the perceived economic and social impact of these policies. Our findings reveal that providing information about the economic effects of integrating immigrants in the labor market significantly alters perceptions and increases support for these policies. Notably, explanations of the economic mechanisms underlying these policies are more effective than simply presenting policy effects or real-life stories of integration challenges. The survey also identifies the primary barriers to policy support, with fairness considerations toward unemployed native workers emerging as the top concern. It reveals that addressing individuals’ specific concerns through tailored mitigation measures can enhance support for policies aimed at better integration migrants. Nevertheless, a significant challenge remains in overcoming mistrust in the government’s commitment and ability to effectively implement these policies and accompanying measures.
Keywords:
Labor market integration policies; Survey; Perceptions; Immigration; Online experiment; Political Economy; integration policy; shape policy support; policy effect; mitigation policy; support variable; integration migrant; Migration; Labor markets; Labor market policy; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Corruption Kills: Global Evidence from Natural Disasters
Mr. Serhan Cevik
and
João Tovar Jalles
Natural disasters are inevitable, but humanitarian and economic losses are determined largely by policy preferences and institutional underpinnings that shape the quality of public infrastructure (including emergency responses and healthcare services) and govern business practices and the adherence to building codes. In this paper, we empirically investigate whether corruption increases the loss of human lives caused by natural disasters, using a large panel of 135 countries during the period 1980–2020. The econometric analysis provides convincing evidence that corruption increases the number of disaster-related deaths, after controlling for economic, demographic, healthcare and institutional factors. That is, the higher the level of corruption in a given country, the greater the number of fatalities as a share of population due to natural disasters. Our results show that the devastating impact of corruption on loss of human lives caused by natural disasters is significantly greater in developing countries, which are even more vulnerable to nonlinear effects of corruption.
Keywords:
Corruption; institutions; natural disasters; fatalities; policy preference; business practice; time effect; effects of corruption; country effect; Infrastructure; Global
Cover Departmental Papers
Regional Spillovers from the Venezuelan Crisis: Migration Flows and Their Impact on Latin America and the Caribbean
Mr. Jorge A Alvarez
,
Mr. Marco Arena
,
Alain Brousseau
,
Mr. Hamid Faruqee
,
Emilio William Fernandez Corugedo
,
Mr. Jaime Guajardo
,
Gerardo Peraza
, and
Juan Yepez
As a new migration crisis is unfolding in Europe because of the war in Ukraine, the purpose of this paper is to also highlight the ongoing migration crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) due to Venezuela’s economic collapse. The stock of Venezuelan migrants reached 5 million in 2019, most of which had settled in other LAC countries. Following a temporary halt during the pandemic, migration from Venezuela has resumed, with the stock of migrants reaching 6.1 million in 2021. These migration flows are expected to continue in the coming years, which can strain public services and labor markets in the recipient economies in LAC. This Departmental Paper focuses on migration spillovers from the Venezuelan economic and social crisis. It sheds light on how migration can raise GDP growth and affect fiscal and external positions in host countries. It also discusses policy options, including greater support for education and integration into the workforce, which could help migrants find jobs to match their skills and help raise growth prospects in recipient countries.
Keywords:
Migration labor market unemployment spillover effects; Migration flow; migration flow; Venezuela crisis; Migration inflow; Migration spillover; policy action; Venezuelan migrant; Migration; Labor markets; Human capital; Caribbean; Global; South America; Central America
Cover IMF Working Papers
Forecasting Social Unrest: A Machine Learning Approach
Chris Redl
and
Sandile Hlatshwayo
We produce a social unrest risk index for 125 countries covering a period of 1996 to 2020. The risk of social unrest is based on the probability of unrest in the following year derived from a machine learning model drawing on over 340 indicators covering a wide range of macro-financial, socioeconomic, development and political variables. The prediction model correctly forecasts unrest in the following year approximately two-thirds of the time. Shapley values indicate that the key drivers of the predictions include high levels of unrest, food price inflation and mobile phone penetration, which accord with previous findings in the literature.
Keywords:
Social unrest; machine learning.; machine learning model; risk index; prediction model; machine learning approach; IMF working; Machine learning; Inflation; Food prices; Global; unrest event
Cover Policy Papers
2021 Comprehensive Surveillance Review— Background Paper on The Surveillance Priority Ensuring Economic Sustainability
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Ensuring economic sustainability is key to achieving the IMF’s surveillance mandate of maintaining present and prospective balance of payments and domestic stability, assuring orderly exchange arrangements, and promoting a stable system of exchange rates. A good understanding of issues related to economic sustainability is thus essential for the IMF to provide effective surveillance and policy advice, while it requires a broad perspective and a long time horizon. With respect to the IMF’s surveillance mandate, the principle of macro-criticality, which guides the IMF’s engagement with its members, is sufficiently flexible and broad, allowing the IMF to cover issues related to economic sustainability. At the same time, given the wide range of issues that are related to economic sustainability, IMF surveillance needs to be selective and focused, with the choice of issues made on a case-by-case basis, considering country circumstances. It also needs to leverage the expertise of other institutions when necessary. The IMF and other institutions have advanced work to enhance analytical frameworks and indicators related to economic sustainability, and this should continue.
Keywords:
IMF surveillance; surveillance mandate; transparency policy; IMF's engagement; policy advice; Income inequality; Climate change; Income; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Does an Inclusive Citizenship Law Promote Economic Development?
Patrick A. Imam
and
Mr. Kangni R Kpodar
This paper analyzes the impact of citizenship laws on economic development. We first document the evolution of citizenship laws around the world, highlighting the main features of jus soli, jus sanguinis as well as mixed regimes, and shedding light on the channels through which they could have differentiated impact on economic development. We then compile a data set of citizenship laws around the world. Using cross-country regressions, panel-data techniques, as well as the synthetic control method and subjecting the results to a battery of tests, we find robust evidence that jus soli laws—being more inclusive—lead to higher income levels than alternative citizenship rules in developing countries, though to a less extent in countries with stronger institutional environment.
Keywords:
WP; citizenship law; economic development; dummy variable; law country; country authorities; naturalization law; Citizenship laws; legal origin; Western Hemisphere country; regime country; government activity; country of immigrant; common law country; civil law; country's citizenship; sub-Saharan country; civil law country; Personal income; Migration; Legal support in revenue administration; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Hemisphere; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Integration and Geography in Economic Development
Mr. Arvind Subramanian
,
Mr. Francesco Trebbi
, and
Mr. Dani Rodrik
We estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining cross-country income levels using recently developed instruments for institutions and trade. Our results indicate that the quality of institutions "trumps" everything else. Controlling for institutions, geography have at best weak direct effects on incomes, although it has a strong indirect effect through institutions. Similarly, controlling for institutions, trade has a negative, albeit, insignificant direct effect on income, although trade too has a positive effect on institutional quality. We relate our results to recent literature, and where differences exist, trace their origins to choices on samples, specification, and instrumentation.
Keywords:
WP; least squares; standard deviation; dependent variable; AJR sample; coefficient estimate; Institutions; integration; geography; development; income level; country's price level; GDP share; Personal income; Productivity; Purchasing power parity; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Europe; Africa; Asia and Pacific; East Asia