Social Science > Emigration and Immigration

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Stephen Ayerst
This paper highlights recent trends in the Kosovo labor market and emigration. Like other Western Balkan countries, Kosovo experienced a sharp decline in population over the previous decade, as emigration increased. Using a structural model of the labor market and migration, the paper examines the potential impact of further EU integration. While lower migration costs hurt the economy, productivity convergence brought on by EU integration has an offsetting impact by increasing wages, lowering unemployment, and increase immigration. Policy simulations show that policymakers have a diverse set of tools—including structural reforms, active labor market policies, business support, and labor participation support—to boost potential and support 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.
Francesca Caselli
,
Huidan Huidan Lin
,
Frederik G Toscani
, and
Jiaxiong Yao
Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, immigration into the European Union (EU) reached a historical high in 2022 and stayed significantly above pre-pandemic levels in 2023. The recent migration has helped accommodate strong labor demand, with around two-thirds of jobs created between 2019 and 2023 filled by non-EU citizens, while unemployment of EU citizens remained at historical lows. Ukrainian refugees also appear to have been absorbed into the labor market faster than previous waves of refugees in many countries. The stronger-than-expected net migration over 2020-23 into the euro area (of around 2 million workers) is estimated to push up potential output by around 0.5 percent by 2030—slightly less than half the euro area’s annual potential GDP growth at that time—even if immigrants are assumed to be 20 percent less productive than natives. This highlights the important role immigration can play in attenuating the effects of the Europe’s challenging demographic outlook. On the flipside, the large inflow had initial fiscal costs and likely led to some congestion of local public services such as schooling. Policy efforts should thus seek to continue to integrate migrants into the labor force while making sure that the supply of public services and amenities (including at the local level) keeps up with the population increase.
Alina Carare
,
Alejandro Fiorito Baratas
,
Jessie Kilembe
,
Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov
, and
Wenzhang Zhang
We provide a consistent empirical framework to estimate the net joint effect of emigration and remittances on the migrants’ countries of origin key economic variables (GDP growth and labor force participation), while addressing the endogeneity concerns using novel “shift-share” instrumental variables in the spirit of Anelli and others (2023). Understanding this joint impact is crucial for the Latin America and the Caribbean region that has seen a continuous growth in remittances over the past decades, due to steady emigration, and where remittances represent the largest capital inflows for many countries now. Focusing on the past two decades (1999-2019), this study finds that on average emigration has a negative and statistically significant impact on contemporaneous economic growth and change in labor force participation in the countries of origin across LAC, while remittances partially mitigate this adverse impact—especially on economic growth—resulting in a small negative net joint effect. There are significant differences across subregions for all estimates, with the largest negative effects observed in the Caribbean. In addition, the negative impact of emigration and remittances on the change in labor participation is small, but for the youngest cohort (15-24) is twice as large as for the overall labor force participation. The results are robust to various specifications, variables, and measurements of emigration and remittances.
Cristina Cattaneo
,
Emanuele Massetti
,
Shouro Dasgupta
, and
Fabio Farinosi
We estimate a bilateral gravity equation for emigration rates controlling for decadal weather averages of temperature, precipitation, droughts, and extreme precipitation in origin countries. Using the parameter estimates of the gravity equation, we estimate global, regional, and country-by-country emigration flows using different population and climate scenarios. Global emigration flows are projected to increase between 73 and 91 million in 2030-2039; between 83 and 102 million in 2040-2049; between 88 and 121 in 2050-59, and between 87 and 133 million in 2060-2069. Changes in emigration flows are mainly due to population growth in the origin countries.
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper examines macroeconomic impact of migration in Australia. Migration in Australia has historically been a significant source of population growth, with a third of the population born overseas. Migration is set to become even more important as the population natural growth rate declines. Australia attracts some of the best-educated migrants to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries who are mostly skilled workers and students, with high labor force participation rates and low unemployment. Disentangling macroeconomic effects of migration from drivers of migration is challenging, but within Australia, migration surges have historically been associated with higher growth and favorable labor market outcomes, with negligible price pressures except in the housing market. Cross-country analysis using instrumental variables confirms a positive impact of migration on macroeconomic outcomes—output, employment, and productivity—without significant inflationary impact. While housing affordability is impacted at the margin, this could represent structural supply shortages and would be best addressed by boosting supply.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper focuses on the neutral interest rate in Costa Rica. Estimates of Costa Rica’s real natural rate of interest are between 0 and 3 percent, with a suite of semistructural and univariate methods reaffirming this conclusion at close to 1 percent. This toolkit of multiple differing methods accounts for characteristics of the Costa Rican economy and suggests current monetary policy remains restrictive. Univariate estimates for Costa Rica are between those for the United States and largest regional peers. Structural changes to the Costa Rican economy, particularly in recent years, have important implications for the movement in the neutral rate. A suite of univariate methods also reaffirms this conclusion and suggests current monetary policy remains restrictive. Estimates for Costa Rica are between the United States and largest regional peers. Replicating the univariate approach for the United States and other countries in Latin America suggests Costa Rica has a somewhat lower neutral real interest rate than the largest regional peers, Brazil and Mexico, which currently appear to have neutral rates above 2 percent but above the United States.
Philipp Engler
,
Ms. Margaux MacDonald
,
Mr. Roberto Piazza
, and
Galen Sher
We propose a novel approach to measure the dynamic macroeconomic effects of immigration on the destination country, combining the analysis of episodes of large immigration waves with instrumental variables techniques. We distinguish the impact of immigration shocks in OECD countries from that of refugee immigration in emerging and developing economies. In OECD, large immigration waves raise domestic output and productivity in both the short and the medium term, pointing to significant dynamic gains for the host economy. We find no evidence of negative effects on aggregate employment of the native-born population. In contrast, our analysis of large refugee flows into emerging and developing countries does not find clear evidence of macroeconomic effects on the host country, a conclusion in line with a growing body of evidence that refugee immigrants are at disadvantage compared to other type of immigrants.
Paula Beltran
and
Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov
Our work is positioned at the intersection of migration and climate change—two key forces shaping the economic outlook of many countries. The analysis explores: (i) the relative importance of origincountry vs destination-country factors in explaining migration patterns; (ii) importance of climate disasters as driver of cross-border migration; and (iii) the importance of climate-driven migration on the overall impact of climate on macroeconomic outcomes. It arrives at the following main findings. First, both origin-country and destination-country contribute to explaining migration outflows from EMDEs, although only the global shocks seem important for advanced economies. Second, climate disasters are important for explaining the origincountry migration shocks in LICs and EMDEs, are especially relevant for smaller countries, and lead to migration of both genders, albeit relatively more for males out of LICs. Third, important portion of climate’s overall impact on economic outcomes—especially agricultural GDP, remittances, and inequality—is captured via climate-driven migration. Finally, higher investment in climate-resilient infrastructure can reduce the impact of climate on cross-border migration, and thereby, result in potentially important economic gains.
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.