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Social Science > Emigration and Immigration

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 27 items for :

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Cover Selected Issues Papers
Labor Market Integration and Migration: Republic of Kosovo
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.
Keywords:
Kosovo; Labor Markets; Population; Migration; EU integration; Policy simulation; labor market integration; Kosovo economy; labor market challenge; Unemployment; Labor shortages; Western Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Georgia: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
This Selected Issues paper explores drivers of inflation and monetary policy in Georgia. Inflation spiked in Georgia following the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. A positive output gap indicates that high demand is generating inflationary pressure in the economy. Estimates suggest tighter monetary policy in 2021 helped significantly lower peak inflation in 2022. One response to uncertainty is for monetary policy makers to act more cautiously – responding less vigorously with monetary policy to shocks. Given the challenges in managing inflation in a highly dollarized, small open-economy prone to large external shocks, it is important to look at the drivers of inflation in Georgia, the monetary policy stance including the natural rate, the transmission mechanism including the impact of dollarization, and the appropriate monetary policy path going forward. Using a range of approaches, IMF establish that monetary policy in Georgia is effective, that it is close to neutral, and that heightened uncertainty supports a gradual policy normalization.
Keywords:
commodity import price index; Georgia population projection; trend inflation; IMF staff calculation; inflation projection; Inflation; Labor markets; Unemployment; Employment; Central Asia; Middle East
Cover IMF Working Papers
Emigration, Business Dynamics, and Firm Heterogeneity in North Macedonia
Ninghui Li
and
Thomas Pihl Gade
High emigration rates are a challenge in the Western Balkans. High emigration rates might lead to inadequate skilled labor and affect firm creation, capital formation, and economic convergence. The 2021 North Macedonia census reveals that more than 12.4% of North Macedonians live abroad. To assess the consequences, we estimate the impact of emigration on the number of firms and capital formation. Business dynamics can affect emigration reversely. To alleviate the endogeneity bias, we use a shift-share instrument with the historical diaspora networks and destination countries’ GDP growth rate as a source of exogenous variations. Our results show that (1) In the short run, a 1 percentage point increase in the emigration rate leads to a 2.91% decrease in the number of firms in the area of origin; (2) The long-run effects of emigration on the number of firms are less negative than the short-run impacts; (3) Emigration mainly reduces the number of micro and small firms; (4) Emigration affects the number of firms and capital formation more in the industrial sector than the other sectors, through the skilled labor shortage channel. This paper contributes to the literature on emigration and provides implications and policy considerations for developing countries, where high emigration rates are prevalent.
Keywords:
Emigration; Labor market; Firm dynamics; Capital formation; North Macedonia; Panel data.; emigration rate; business dynamics; firm Heterogeneity; emigration challenge; emigration effect; Migration; Unemployment rate; Industrial sector; Labor markets; Labor shortages; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Northern Triangle Undocumented Migration to the United States
Ms. Alina Carare
,
Catherine Koh
, and
Mr. Yorbol Yakhshilikov
Undocumented migration from the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) to the United States has been steadily increasing over the past 30 years, accelerating at times. The paper investigates what factors could explain this fact, by estimating an investment decision model, using annual data over 1990-2019. Economic labor market conditions (real wages and unemployment rates, especially in the U.S.) play a major role in explaining undocumented migration. Less explored drivers of undocumented migration tied to living conditions at home also explain well undocumented migration (natural disasters, coffee production, higher temperatures, and homicide rates). Tighter border enforcement measures act as a deterrent, and perceptions regarding changes of these measures could also drive up undocumented migration at times. Policies that address the root causes of migration at home, including with the U.S. help, are essential in reducing the difference between perceived benefits and expected costs of migration.
Keywords:
International migration; undocumented migration; U.S. Department of Agriculture; investment decision theory; U.S. Department of Homeland Security; NT country; Migration; Real wages; Income; Unemployment rate; Natural disasters; Caribbean; Western Hemisphere; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Evolution of Remittances to CAPDR Countries and Mexico During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Aleksandra Babii
,
Ms. Alina Carare
,
Dmitry Vasilyev
, and
Mr. Yorbol Yakhshilikov
Traditional models relying on standard variables like the U.S. Hispanic unemployment rate fared well in explaining remittances to CAPDR and Mexico during the pre-pandemic period. However, they fail to predict the sustained growth in remittances since June 2020, including the significant increase in the average amount remitted. Using data from over 300 remittances corridors (from 23 U.S. states to 14 Salvadoran departments), we find that this increase is primarily explained by the dynamics of U.S. states real wages, as well as more temporary factors like U.S. unemployment relief (including the extraordinary pandemic support), U.S. states mobility, and COVID-19 infections at home. The paper also analyses what role the change in the modes of transmission of remittances, additional U.S. fiscal stimulus and U.S. labor market developments, especially in the sectors were CAPDR and Mexican migrants preponderantly work, play in explaining aggregate remittances growth.
Keywords:
COVID-19 pandemic; migrant remittances; international migration; remittances dynamics; B. panel Vector Autoregression Model; remittances growth; evolution of remittance; remittances to CAPDR country; Remittances; Real wages; COVID-19; Migration; Unemployment; Central America
Cover IMF Working Papers
Immigration and Wage Dynamics in Germany
Sabine Klinger
,
Anvar Musayev
,
Jean-Marc Natal
, and
Enzo Weber
German wages have not increased very rapidly in the last decade despite strong employment growth and a 5 percentage point decline in the unemployment rate. Our analysis shows that a large part of the decline in unemployment was structural. Micro-founded Phillips curves fit the German data rather well and suggest that relatively low wage growth can be largely attributed to low inflation expectations and low productivity growth. There is no evidence – from either aggregate or micro-level administrative data – that large immigration flows since 2012 have had dampening effects on aggregate wage growth, as complementarity effects offset composition and competition effects.
Keywords:
WP; Phillips curve; labor market; wage growth; immigration; micro-data; panel regression; Germany; wage inflation; wage distribution; effect of immigration; wage Phillips curve; wage difference; WLS panel wage equation; wage development; reservation wage; Wages; Migration; Labor markets; Unemployment; Unemployment rate; Europe; inflation expectation; Labor tightness
Cover IMF Working Papers
Regional Labor Mobility in Spain
Lucy Qian Liu
This paper studies the main factors that explain the low regional mobility in Spain, with a view to identifying policy options at the regional and central level to promote labor mobility. The empirical analysis finds that house prices, labor market conditions, and the pervasiveness of labor market duality at the regional level are the main determinants for Spain’s regional mobility, while labor market institutions and policies play an important role at the national level. Policies that facilitate wage setting flexibility and reduce labor market duality could help enhance the functioning of the labor market, thereby promoting labor mobility. There may be also room for policies to incentivize people to move and provide support through targeted active labor market policies.
Keywords:
Labor mobility; interregional migration; regional labor market; gravity; labor market variable; migration flow; labor market duality; protection benefit; labor market condition; duality issue; labor market indicator; migration outflow; Labor markets; Migration; Labor force; Unemployment rate; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Labor Market Integration of Migrants in Europe: New Evidence from Micro Data
Giang Ho
and
Ms. Rima A Turk
This paper presents novel empirical evidence on the labor market integration of migrants across Europe. It investigates how successfully migrants integrate in 13 European countries by applying a unified framework to analyze a rich micro dataset with over ten million individuals surveyed between 1998 and 2016. Focusing on employment outcomes, we document substantial heterogeneity in the patterns of labor market integration across host countries and by migrant gender and origin. Our results also point to the importance of cohorts and network effects, initial labor market conditions, and the differential impact of education acquired domestically and abroad in determining migrants’ subsequent employment prospects. The analysis has implications for the design of effective integration policies.
Keywords:
WP; migrant; labor market; International migration; labor market integration; employment; micro data; integration speed; language skill; employment outcome; migrant status; arrival cohort; spends time; Migration; Labor markets; Unemployment; Europe; Asia and Pacific; North America
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Euro Area Policies: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper focuses on long-term impact of Brexit on the European Union (EU). This paper examines consequences of Brexit on the EU27 under various post-Brexit scenarios by using two different complementary approaches. Our results, which are broadly in line with recent findings in the literature, are twofold. First, Brexit would have negative effects on the EU27 as well, given the depth and the complexity of the EU-U.K. integration. Similar to various empirical studies, it has been observed that the estimated long-term output and employment losses (in percent) for the EU27 in the study are on average lower than the corresponding losses for the UK estimated in the literature. The level of output and employment are estimated to fall at most by up to 1.5 percent and 0.7 percent in the long run in the event of a ‘hard’ Brexit scenario, respectively. A “soft” Brexit outcome would lead to much lower losses.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Brexit; employment growth; job prospect; youth employment; U.K. migrant; EU-U.K. trade integration; euro area; Labor force; Employment; Unemployment; Unemployment rate; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Denmark: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper analyzes household balance sheet structure in Denmark and sensitivity to rising rates. Households in Denmark have gotten considerably wealthier in recent decades. High household assets, in particular in the mandatory pension system and housing, provide stability by funding future consumption and protecting against shocks. The high, but mostly illiquid, assets have a counterpart, however, in the high household debt, as households often need to borrow to consume or buy property. The resulting combination of large assets and liabilities on household balance sheets make the Danish economy sensitive to interest-rate changes. Sudden increases in interest rates can create macroeconomic instability via their impact on the debt service of households and knock-on effects on consumption.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; migrant; firm; employment probability; integration outcome; demand condition; sales growth; migrants to Denmark; Migration; Consumption; Disposable income; Income; Europe; Global; Northern Europe