measuring and explaining cross country immigration policies summary the intensified international migration pressures of the recent decades prompted many developed countries to revise their immigration regulations and increase border controls however the development of these reforms as well as their effectiveness in actually managing immigration flows remain poorly understood the main reason is that migration regulations are hard to quantify which has prevented the construction of a universal measure of migration policy to fill this gap in the literature we construct an indicator of the restrictiveness of immigration entry policy across countries as well as a more comprehensive indicator of migration policy that also accounts for staying requirements and regulations to foster integration specifically we estimate a bayesian state space model to combine all publicly available data sources that are informative on migration policy this methodology allows us to account for measurement errors in the underlying indicators and increases data availability without imputations or other ad hoc manipulations the indexes that we obtain are then used to disentangle the factors determining the toughness of migration regulations our empirical framework accounts for cross country correlation in migration policies and combines elements from the median voter and interest group approach we find strong evidence of spatial correlation in particular in entry restrictiveness yet substantially less in overall immigration policy this suggests that there still remains a substantive national margin in immigration policies in particular in the less visible segments such as staying conditions and integration rights we also find indications of a global trend of increasing restrictiveness in migration entry policy after the financial crisis of 2007 08

constitutional rules of exclusion in jurisdiction formation the rules under which jurisdictions nations provinces can deny immigration or expel residents are generally governed by a constitution but there do not exist either positive or normative analyses to suggest what types of exclusion rules are best we stylize this problem by suggesting four constitutional rules of admission free mobility admission by majority vote admission by unanimous consent admission by a demand threshold for public goods in a simple model we characterize the equilibria that result from these rules and provide a positive theory for which constitutional rules will be chosen

endogenous growth and the gains from immigration abstract this note is concerned with the welfare implications of immigration when growth is endogenous in contrast to standard neoclassical results immigration will benefit an arbitrary native if and only if the average immigrant possesses more capital than the average native

immigration quotas and skill upgrading a reason why immigration policy is such a contended issue is that often immigrants end up obtaining the right to vote and hence may affect future policies this paper offers a dynamic general equilibrium model of immigration policy in each period a heterogeneously skilled population chooses an immigration policy by majority vote voters anticipate that immigration affects the skill premium and the skill composition of the electorate the main insight is the existence of a trade off between skill complementary immigration and the resulting shift in political power i argue that a reasonably parameterized version of the model is consistent with the main features of us immigration

optimal migration a world perspective we ask what level of migration would maximize world welfare welfare is assumed to be a weighted average of the utilities of the world s various citizens but the weights are also country specific using a calibrated one sector model we find that unless the weights are heavily biased toward the natives of rich countries the extent of migration that would be optimal far exceeds the levels observed today the claim remains true in a two sector extension of the model all versions of the model assume that migration is the only redistributive tool

unemployed immigrants and voter sentiment in the welfare state abstract adverse voter sentiment can arise when immigrants are unemployed and receive tax financed income transfers the explanation for unemployment however determines the consequences for the local population and an efficiency wage explanation for unemployment is consistent with mutual benefit to national workers and employers from the presence of unemployed immigrants receiving tax financed income transfers the mutual benefit requires credible labor market disciplining through job offers to immigrants and willingness of immigrants to accept job offers acceptance of job offers results in displacement in employment of national workers by immigrants which can compromise the effectiveness of efficiency wages as a counter to anti immigrant voter sentiment in the welfare state

intergenerational mobility and the political economy of immigration abstract flows of us immigrants are concentrated at the extremes of the skill distribution we develop a dynamic political economy model consistent with this observation individuals care about wages and the welfare of their children skill types are complementary in production voter support for immigration requires that the children of median voter natives and of immigrants have sufficiently dissimilar skills we estimate intergenerational transition matrices for skills as measured by education and find support for immigration at high and low skills but not in the middle in a version with guest worker programs voters prefer high skilled immigrants but low skilled guest workers

offer heterogeneity in a two state model of sequential search the econometric method in the c flinn and j heckman 1982 study for estimating a markovian model of search unem ployment and job tenure is further augmented by introducing a possibi lity that jobs may differ by separation rates or nonwage attributes a set of reservation wages is obtained as a solution to the value fun ctions differences in reservation wages estimate the compensating no nwage utility differentials among jobs the unemployment spell distri bution is characterized as one of competing risk based on which type of job is finally accepted the model is implemented using data from the employment opportunities pilot project copyright 1988 by mit press

the political economy of naturalization this paper presents a political economy model in which self interested natives decide when citizenship and or voting rights should be granted to foreign born workers native voters know that immigrants hold different political preferences and would thus tend to postpone their enfranchisement as much as possible they also consider however that a more restrictive naturalization policy may reduce the gains from immigration we find that the optimal timing of naturalization depends on the quantity quality productivity and preferences of potential immigrants the political composition and the age structure of the native population as well as the sensitivity of migration choices to the citizenship issue

coyote ugly the deadweight cost of rent seeking for immigration policy many studies use a harberger triangle method to estimate the immigration surplus to the native born population and conclude that the benefit of immigration is very small in proportion to the size of the us economy and thus the united states does not to stand to lose much if immigration is further restricted this calculation neglects the rent seeking costs that the us economy bears when immigration policy is politically determined this study estimates the rent seeking losses that the us economy could suffer if immigration policy were reformed to further close the borders

do interest groups affect us immigration policy while anecdotal evidence suggests that interest groups play a key role in shaping immigration policy there is no systematic empirical analysis of this issue in this paper we construct an industry level dataset for the united states by combining information on the number of temporary work visas with data on lobbying activity associated with immigration we find robust evidence that both pro and anti immigration interest groups play a statistically significant and economically relevant role in shaping migration policy across sectors barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business interest groups incur larger lobbying expenditures and higher in sectors where labor unions are more important

bridging trade theory and labour econometrics the effects of international migration this paper surveys current theoretical and empirical research on international migration with a particular emphasis on the links between trade theory and labour empirics

international migration and the role of institutions we study the determinants of international migration with special attention to the role of institutional factors other than economic and demographic fundamentals we evaluate the impact of political institutions and of those institutions specifically targeted at attracting migrants for a dataset on 19th century migration we find that economic and demographic differentials play a major role but that the quality of institutions also matter we produce evidence that both political and migration institutions represent significant factors of attraction even after controlling for their potential endogeneity through a set of instruments exploiting colonial history and the institutions inherited from the past

the first review of european union antidumping reviews the literature on antidumping ad has documented various aspects of this protectionist tool however a peculiar feature of ad has not received much attention these measures are endogenous to the behaviour of the exporting firms which can adjust the dumping margin by changing their export price and ask the authority to amend the ad measures accordingly the objective of this paper is to fill part of this gap in the literature by analysing the ad reviews conducted by the european union for affirmative petitions initiated in 1980 2009 to this end a novel data set of all such reviews has been assembled summary statistics reveal that more than a third of all petitions concluded with the imposition of ad measures are reviewed at least once before their expiration and most reviews lead to lower ad duties although almost 20 per cent of the firms investigated through interim reviews see their duties increase there are significant differences in the outcome of the reviews depending on the party requesting them i e reviews lodged by european producers are less likely to lead to lower duties these conclusions are confirmed by the econometric analysis which also shows that chinese firms see their duties reduced significantly less than those of firms from other countries

reversal of migration flows a fresh look at the german reunification we investigate the dynamic effects of interregional labor market integration on migration flows capital formation and the price for housing services the co evolution of these variables depends on initial conditions at the time of labor market integration in an initially capital poor economy there may be a reversal of migration flows during the transition to the steady state while housing costs are increasing over time although capital may accumulate while labor emigrates early in the transition the causal effect of immigration on capital investments and housing costs is positive we present new data on the evolution of net migration flows and rental rates for housing in east germany after 1990 our results are consistent with the presented evidence in the reverse migration scenario

immigration skill heterogeneity and qualification mismatch we investigate the effects of us immigration on native workers in a search and matching environment that allows for skill heterogeneity differential search cost cross skill matching and imperfect transferability of human capital across borders we find that cross skill matching benefits the unskilled and hurts the skilled native workers similarly new unskilled immigration benefits the low skilled native workers and hurts the high skilled on the other hand new skilled immigration benefits both skilled and unskilled natives moreover when we simulate the effects of the actual us immigration influx that took place between the years 2000 and 2009 we find that both skilled and unskilled native workers gain we also find that initially an improvement in the transferability of human capital benefits the high skilled natives at the expense of the low skilled nevertheless below a certain overeducation ratio further improvements in the transferability of human capital make both types of native workers worse off

a note on the political economy of immigration in this note it is shown that the different attitudes towards immigration can be explained in terms of economic interest although the public immigration debate is dominated by moral and political arguments on the one hand immigration supporters are mainly found among those who may expect economic gains from immigration skilled workers and especially members of certain professions on the other hand unskilled workers who stand to lose economically because they can be easily substitued for by immigrants are for the most part opposed to immigration

job search and the duration of layoff unemployment this paper derives an optimal job searching strategy for workers on layoff and an optimal recall policy for firms when each side anticipates the other side s actions correctly it shows that workers search for an alternative job only if the probability of recall falls below a critical level and that firms may recall before the recovery of demand depending on the costs of laying off and hiring workers and the probability of losing workers on layoff through the use of optimal job searching and recall policies the paper derives expressions for the duration of layoff unemployment and discusses briefly their comparative static properties

openness and income the roles of trade and migration abstract this paper explores the relationship between openness to trade immigration and income per person across countries to address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental variables strategy introduced by frankel and romer 1999 we build predictors of openness to immigration and to trade for each country by using information on bilateral geographical and cultural distance while controlling for country size since geography may affect income through other channels we also control for climate disease environment natural resources and colonial origins most importantly we also account for the roles of institutions and early development our instrumental variables estimates provide evidence of a robust positive effect of openness to immigration on long run income per capita in contrast we are unable to establish an effect of trade openness on income we also show that the effect of migration operates through an increase in total factor productivity which appears to reflect increased diversity in productive skills and to some extent a higher rate of innovation

controlling migration in an open labor market a direct immigration policy is no longer feasiblefor a single region in a common labor market within apolitical economy approach this paper focuses on the question ofwhether migration can be controlled through the composition ofgovernment expenditures taking into account both capital and laborincome it turns out that the median voter s income is u shaped in thenumber of immigrants therefore the government can eitherprovide less of the goods preferred by foreigners in order to minimizeimmigration or carry out an active immigration policy byshifting its expenditures towards those publicly provided goods thepaper identifies the factors that determine the government schoice between the two strategies

on the political economy of immigration the authors study how immigration policies that impose capital and skill requirements would be determined under majority voting when native agents differ in their wealth holdings and vote to maximize their income the results of the model calculations indicate that the native population will be polarized between those who would like an immigration policy to maximize the domestic capital labor ratio and those who would like an immigration policy that would minimize it

on generalizing the economic analysis of international migration a note the author critically examines an article by kar yui wong concerning two important well known propositions on international factor movements namely first finite international factor movements are beneficial to the nationals of the destination country but detrimental to those who are left behind in the source country and second marginal movements do not have such welfare implications the present paper by utilizing the indirect trade utility function derives results in a manner that is both direct and at once intuitively transparent

optimal strategies for workers on temporary layoff in this paper we analyze the worker s behavior when faced with job offers which include possible temporary layoff spells of varying known durations we show that of the three strategies which can be optimal two involve search in all or part of the layoffs we also show that the duration of any particular spell plays no role in determining which strategy is optimal to pursue and finally we develop an index for evaluating jobs with different wage and layoff probabilities and show that the worker s reservation wage monotonically increases decreases or remains constant during the course of a layoff

public pensions and voting on immigration in a recent paper scholten and thum 1996 analyze the impact of a pay as you go payg pension system with a fixed replacement ratio on the immigration policy in a democracy we extend the analysis of median voter s choice in two respects first in contrast to scholten and thum 1996 who assume myopic voting behavior our paper considers fully rational agents and provides a solution under this more complex behavioral assumption voting with rational agents yields a more liberal immigration policy than with myopic voters second we examine a different decision structure with a fixed contribution rate to the pension system in this case the majority rule leads to a completely different solution

who is against a common market this paper develops a theory of the endogenous formation of a common market in a three country two factor political economy model in the status quo home and foreign implement nondiscriminatory policies toward international factor flows in order to maximize the domestic median voter s welfare then the two countries simultaneously hold referenda on a common market initiative leading to the removal of the pre existing policies for factor flows between the member countries while no coordination is imposed on policies vis a vis the rest of the world several interesting results emerge in a common market the returns on factors moving between the members are more likely to increase the larger is the import demand of one country relative to the factor supply of the exporting partner factors that do not relocate are more likely to see their returns decrease when flows are large and import demands are inelastic importantly for the common market to emerge as an equilibrium some factors must continue to experience enhanced protection when the integration process is completed this result highlights the potential tension between social desirability and the political feasibility of the integration process jel f1 f2 p16

immigration and income redistribution a political economy analysis this paper examines the effect of immigration on the extent of income redistribution via majority voting on the income tax the tax outcome depends on the size of the native majority and the initial amount of redistribution in the economy which in turn determines the skill composition of immigrants as a main result we derive conditions for multiple tax equilibria if the native majority of either skilled or unskilled is not too strong and immigrants are allowed to vote both a high tax and a low tax outcome is possible in a referendum natives will then vote against immigrant voting at best natives are indifferent towards immigrant voting

seeking asylum in europe seeking asylum in europe over the last three decades the annual number of applications for asylum in the countries of the european union has increased from about 15 000 to more than 300 000 this has sparked a political backlash a revolution in policy a lively academic debate but very little economic analysis although the causes of asylum flows and the effects of policy are much discussed they have rarely been the subject of quantitative analysis this article examines the evolution of asylum flows and asylum policy across the eu since the early 1980s it investigates the effects of war and conflict economic incentives and asylum policies on the total numbers and on the proportions going to the different countries of the eu special attention is given to the growth of policy restrictiveness across the eu and to the harmonization of asylum policies contrary to some views policy has worked to stem the flows but it has been overwhelmed by other forces timothy j hatton

immigration to the land of redistribution negative perceptions about migrants in europe are driven by concerns that foreigners abuse welfare paradoxically instruments of social inclusion are becoming weapons of mass exclusion we compare evidence on welfare access and the net fiscal position of migrants with perceptions based on a largely unexploited database eu silc we find no evidence that legal migrants notably skilled migrants are net recipients of transfers from the state however there is evidence of residual dependency on non contributory transfers and self selection of unskilled migrants in the countries with the most generous welfare states alternative strategies to unbundle migration from welfare access are discussed

immigration unemployment and pensions this paper examines the impact of immigration on a host country with welfare state arrangements that support both the unemployed and the elderly it is shown that low skilled immigration increases the unemployment rate furthermore it harms the low skilled native population and benefits the high skilled natives and pensioners nevertheless as under competitive labor markets immigration generates an unambiguous gain for the native population as a whole howe er in contrast to the findings under full employment this gain can be dampened by an expansion of the pension system

the political economy of international trade and factor mobility abstract free trade in goods and factors is efficient when we move away from economic theory and consider the policies actually followed by governments we observe distortions being implemented both on goods and factors trades it is natural then to question the relative merits of the two types of intervention and the normative literature has provided only partial answers we ask then why is the international flow of goods and factors not free and the political economy literature has looked at the two issues only separately in studying the determination of trade policy a theoretical paradigm has emerged focusing on the role of influence driven contributions this approach has also found strong empirical support the literature on the political economy of factor mobility on the other hand is fragmented distortions in labor and capital flows are typically the subject of different studies and only recently a unified framework has been proposed more work has to be done in this area as well as in integrating the political economy of trade and factor movements

coordination failures in immigration policy abstract we propose a theoretical framework for analyzing the problems associated to unilateral immigration policy in receiving countries and for evaluating the grounds for reform of international institutions governing immigration we build a model with multiple destination countries and show that immigration policy in one country is influenced by measures adopted abroad as migrants choose where to locate in part in response to differences in immigration policy this interdependence gives rise to a leakage effect of immigration policy an international externality well documented in the empirical literature in this environment immigration policy becomes strategic and unilateral behavior may lead to coordination failures where receiving countries are stuck in welfare inferior equilibria we then use an equilibrium refinement to show that the selected equilibrium differs from the pareto dominant one and argue that multilateral institutions that help receiving countries make immigration policy commitments would address this inefficiency

credible redistribution policy and skilled migration abstract we analyze the joint determination of income redistribution and migration flows across fiscally independent regions in our model regional governments lack commitment so their policy announcements must be credible and redistribution between skilled and unskilled workers is bounded by informational constraints in any given region the welfare of all workers is increasing in the share of skilled workers as after tax incomes increase for both skilled and unskilled workers when skilled workers are more geographically mobile than unskilled ones the endogenous response of redistribution policy can induce regional agglomeration of skilled workers we also find that the equilibrium features symmetry breaking if migration costs are relatively low and that worker mobility tends to amplify pre existing welfare differences in income and welfare across regions

a model of layoff search and job choice and its estimation a labor market model of search and transitions is analyzed where certain jobs carry layoff prospects and others do not the dynamic value functions are solved for reservation wages for searchers with a choice between these jobs for the laid off worker the wage at the prior job emerges as an important determinant of the optimal search strategy similarly prospect of layoff is an important consideration for permanently separated workers during search conditioning on the nonparametric estimates of the reservation wages the model is estimated using data from the employment opportunities pilot project survey copyright 1992 by mit press

on the political economy of immigration and income redistribution in this article we analyze an economy in which agents vote over immigration policy and redistributive tax policy we show that natives preferences over immigration are influenced by the prospect that immigrants will be voting over future tax policy we also show that changes in the degree of international capital mobility the distribution of initial capital among natives the wealth or poverty of the immigrant pool and the future voting rights and entitlements of immigrants can have dramatic effects on equilibrium immigration and tax policies finally we provide some empirical support for the model s predictions