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Social Science > Emigration and Immigration

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Cover Finance & Development
Finance & Development, March 2025
International Monetary Fund. Communications Department
Talent is one of the world’s most valuable resources. Countries that identify and nurture the best minds gain a competitive edge. Those that fail to do so don’t just slow their own progress—the world loses out, too. F&D magazine’s March issue examines the role of global talent and human capital through a macroeconomic lens.
Keywords:
historian PAULINA Bren; IMF photo; AI tool; WTO accession; slowing productivity growth; Migration; Job training; Women; Global; Caribbean; Africa; Southern Europe; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Immigration and Local Inflation
Philip Barrett
and
Brandon Tan
We use a shift-share approach to estimate the impact of inward immigration on local inflation in the United States. We find that a higher rate of immigration reduces inflation, lowering it by about 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points following a doubling of immigration. Higher immigration flows also lower local goods inflation, increase local housing and utilities inflation, and have no statistically significant impact on inflation in other services. Effects are approximately two and three time larger for working age and low-education immigrants. We do not detect a statistically significant impact of more educated immigrants on overall inflation, but they do increase local housing inflation. Our results can be jointly rationalized by a simple general equilibrium model where the substitutability of capital and labor varies across industries but capital is fixed in the short run.
Keywords:
Immigration; inflation; utilities inflation; goods inflation; housing inflation; inflation in the United States; price level; Migration; Housing; Labor supply; Caribbean
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 Staff Country Reports
Nepal: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper utilizes a new macro-model capturing food insecurity, migration and trade in Nepal. It shows that low yields and remoteness explain a majority of the difference in prevalence of food insecurity across districts in Nepal; both climate shocks and persistent climate-change increase food insecurity and disproportionately harm the most vulnerable; and lower wages in migrant destinations would reduce remittances, increase food insecurity and lower welfare. The paper then presents and quantifies a number of potential policies to address these issues. The paper quantifies the impact of a number of policy options (cash transfers, better infrastructure, and improved agricultural productivity) to address food insecurity and climate change. In addition to climate shocks, persistent climate change will lower welfare, increase food insecurity, and migration. Given the model results show that agricultural productivity is a key determinant of food security, Nepal can learn from other countries policies including in agricultural extension, improved community water management techniques, and climate resilient agriculture in line with the National Adaptation Plan.
Keywords:
food insecurity in Nepal; NAC's risk rating; migration cost; remittances in Nepal; NAC's borrowing; Climate change; Food security; Loans; Migration; 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
The Propensity to Remit: Macro and Micro Factors Driving Remittances to Central America and the Caribbean
Hussein Bidawi
,
Paola Aliperti F. Domingues
,
Chiara Fratto
, and
Ms. Nicole Laframboise
In contrast to expectations, remittances to Central America and the Caribbean (CAC) surprised positively during 2020 and 2021. This study revisits the key macro indicators driving remittances, looks at the heterogeneous impacts of the global financial crisis (GFC) and COVID shocks, then uses micro data from the U.S. Current Population Census to examine individual features of immigrant households and how this might affect the “propensity to remit”. The paper finds that remittance flows are responsive to both sending and receiving country economic conditions and that labor market conditions are particularly important determinants of remittance flows, explaining the unexpected jump in remittance flows in 2020-2021 and providing stronger predictive power when combined with income variables. Analysis of the micro data reinforces these findings, reflecting the existence of a family resource sharing model at play.
Keywords:
Migrant remittances; covid-19 pandemic; global financial crisis; elasticities.; remittance flow; micro data; labor market condition; IMF working papers; remittances to Central America and the Caribbean; migrant remittance; Remittances; Migration; Income; Labor markets; Central America; Caribbean; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Why U.S. Immigration Matters for the Global Advancement of Science
Ruchir Agarwal
,
Patrick Gaulé
, and
Geoff Smith
This paper studies the impact of U.S. immigration barriers on global knowledge production. We present four key findings. First, among Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists, migrants to the U.S. play a central role in the global knowledge network—representing 20-33% of the frontier knowledge producers. Second, using novel survey data and hand-curated life-histories of International Math Olympiad (IMO) medalists, we show that migrants to the U.S. are up to six times more productive than migrants to other countries—even after accounting for talent during one’s teenage years. Third, financing costs are a key factor preventing foreign talent from migrating abroad to pursue their dream careers, particularly for talent from developing countries. Fourth, certain ‘push’ incentives that reduce immigration barriers—by addressing financing constraints for top foreign talent—could increase the global scientific output of future cohorts by 42 percent. We concludeby discussing policy options for the U.S. and the global scientific community.
Keywords:
Immigration; Science; Talent; Universities; WP; IMO medalist; migrants to the U.S.; IMO participant; productivity regression; IMO point; Migration; Productivity; 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
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