El Mouhoub Mouhoud

Inequality and migration: what different European patterns of migration tell us

Migration flows are often thought of as stemming from a reserve army of labour from developing countries, putting downward pressure on wages of low‐qualified workers in developed countries. This paper analyses the major determinants of migration flows among European countries and stresses their diversity through a combination of labour market factors in receiving countries and network effects attached to countries of origin. The first part of the paper describes the changes in the dynamics of European migration flows. The second part estimates a reduced form of model of the relative determinants of migration flows, distinguishing between labour market and network effects. The results of these estimations lead to a distinction among various ‘regimes of labour migration’ among European countries. These are briefly compared with the pattern of migration observed in the US.

Determinants and Uses of Remittances to Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries: Insights from a New Survey

In this paper, we analyze the determinants and the final use of remittances of migrants settled in France sending remittances to the southern Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan African countries. Research using microdata is very scarce in this region; we rely on a specially designed survey (2MO) we conducted in 2007-2008 of 1,000 people who remit to the three Maghreb countries, to Turkey and to the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. We also use a second survey conducted by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (DREES) which includes a sample of 3,500 people from the regions we are interested in. DREES microdata set enables us to understand who is more likely to remit (extensive margin). 2MO microdata allows an analysis of remittance behavior amongst those who remit (intensive margin) including sum and reported final use of remittances (housing, investment, current expenditures). Using these two microdatasets, we examine the likelihood to remit across the different waves of immigrants, the motivations to remit and the intended final use of remittances to highlight behavior differences between the different waves of immigration on the one hand, and on the other hand, the importance of looking beyond classical variables to better understand remittance behavior and its changing nature.

Remittance Behaviour of Forced Migrants in Post-Apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT This paper looks at the determinants of South-South remittances. An original dataset of African migrants living in Johannesburg is used. As South Africa attracts both economic and forced migrants, we focus on the impact of the reason of emigration (violence versus economic concerns) on migrants’ remittance behaviour. On the extensive margin, the results show that leaving a home country for reasons of violence decreases the probability of remitting to the home country. On the intensive margin, transferred amounts do not differ according to whether the migrant was forced to migrate or not. When the migrant has decided to remit, it is more his/her current conditions in the host country and traditional factors (income, education, sex, etc.) that determine the amounts transferred. Our results are robust when restricting the definition of forced migration.

'To Have and Have Not': International Migration, Poverty, and Inequality in Algeria

In this paper, using an original survey, we analyze the distributional impact of international migration across two regions of Algeria. A semi-parametric descriptive analysis is complemented with a parametric model. Remittances do not significantly change the Gini coefficient in nearly any of the counterfactual scenarios. However, migration reduced poverty by 40 percent, with different effects across regions for extreme poverty. Foreign transfers, especially foreign pensions, have a strong positive impact on very poor families in one region. Poor families in the other region suffer from a “double loss”: their migrants do not provide local income and they do not send much money home.

International migration by 2030: impact of immigration policies scenarios on growth and employment

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to estimate the dynamic of international migration between the different regions of the world for 2030 and to measure the impact of different kind of migration policies on the economic and social evolution. Design/methodology/approach – The change and migration forecasting are estimated for regions of the world using macroeconomic Cambridge Alphametrics Model. Findings – The crisis and its aggravation thus clearly favour scenarios of immigration policy along the “zero migration” or “constant migration”. These choices of migration policies reinforce the deflationary process resulting in reduced opportunities for renewed growth in industrial areas and are not offset by the dynamism of growth in emerging countries. Paradoxically, the developed countries which are most durably affected by the crisis are also those that have ageing population and are in high need of skilled and unskilled labor. Practical implications – Three options are possible: one going along the depressiv...

Regional and Global Integration

In the past 50 years, the MENA region has been integrated to the world economy through two main channels: the sale of oil, and labor migration. Labor migration, in retrospect, acted as the main way to redistribute oil revenues from the oil exporting to the importing countries, especially those in the Mashrek region, greatly benefitting millions of households. The migration of mostly unskilled workers from the Maghreb to Europe, during its period of fast growth, played a similar role. But migration will almost certainly never again boom as it did in the past.