Greece (-0.04%). For emigration, except for Mexico that has a very large and positive shortrun correction, due to a very large emigration rate (1.2% per year in the period considered), the other corrections are very small. Figure 10 shows the simulation of short-run e¤ects visa-vis the long run e¤ects of immigration and emigration on average wages for the baseline scenario. Combining imperfect capital adjustment with the long-run e¤ects, we still have positive short-run average wage e¤ects of immigration on non-migrants in four European countries. In the UK, France, Netherlands and Sweden immigration had a positive e¤ects on average native wages already in the short-run. For Greece, Italy, Portugal and Belgium the short-run e¤ects on average wages are negative and very small (less than -0.2% in absolute value). For Germany and Spain they are negative and between -0.27 and -0 35%. The same countries experienced a long-run increase in their average wage due to immigrants equal to 0.20%. Hence, even in the short run, accounting for sluggish capital adjustment we do not ...nd much of a negative average wage e¤ect of immigration. As for emigration the shortrun e¤ects are smaller in absolute value but still negative for seven European countries and for the EU15 as a whole. Even in the short run in most European countries the e¤ect of emigration is negative and larger in absolute value than the e¤ect of immigration. Both of them, however, are rather small in the order of few tenths of a percentage points. Even in the short run and accounting for the slow adjustment of capital immigration has a very moderate e¤ect, usually close to zero and, if negative, smaller (for seven countries out of ten) than the e¤ect of emigration. Not even in a short-run perspective did immigration have a signi...cant negative impact on native wages for European countries. To the contrary emigration did not produce any short-run gains for native wages that may reduce the welfare cost of the long-run losses.

# 6 Conclusions

Immigrants are highly visible to the governments and public in destination countries especially in times of economic anxiety and high unemployment levels. They are also relatively easy to measure by statistical agencies of the host countries through censuses, population and labor force surveys. On the other hand emigrants are much less visible to governments of their birth countries and less known to the general public. There is no mandatory registration for those who leave a country, they are dispersed in many receiving countries and no statistical agency keeps detailed records of all its emigrants and returnees. There is rarely a policy instrument that can a¤ect emigration since freedom of movement allows people to leave any democratic country.

During the last decades emigration has been considered mostly in connection with poor countries and usually in the context of brain drain. There have been studies on the labor market impact of immigration in the destination since the 1970s. However, only very recently and only in connection with the debate on brain drain and brain gain, some economists have began to measure empirically the aggregate income e¤ects of emigration (Beine et.al. 2008). This paper uses a recently constructed database on emigration ‡ows by schooling level between 1990 and 2000, constructed using data across all countries in the world. Using a range of parameters and an aggregate representation of labor markets of receiving countries, we show that residents of Western European countries experienced wage gains, on average, from 22