Masood Gheasi

The Impact of Immigration on International Trade: A Meta-Analysis

Since the early 1990s many empirical studies have been conducted on the impact of international migration on international trade, predominantly from the host country perspective. Because most studies have adopted broadly the same specification, namely a log-linear gravity model of export and import flows augmented with the logarithm of the stock of immigrants from specific source countries as an additional explanatory variable, the resulting elasticities are broadly comparable and yield a set of estimates that is well suited to meta-analysis. We therefore compile and analyze in this paper the distribution of immigration elasticities of imports and exports across 48 studies that yielded 300 observations. The results show that immigration complements rather than substitutes for trade flows between host and origin countries. Correcting for heterogeneity and publication bias, an increase in the number of immigrants by 10 percent may be expected to increase the volume of trade on average by about 1.5 percent. However, the impact is lower for trade in homogeneous goods. Over time, the growing stock of immigrants decreases the elasticities. The estimates are affected by the choice of some covariates, the nature of the data (cross-section or panel) and the estimation technique. Elasticities vary between countries in ways that cannot be fully explained by study characteristics; trade restrictions and immigration policies matter for the impact of immigration on trade. The migrant elasticity of imports is larger than that of exports in about half the countries considered, but the publication bias and heterogeneity-corrected elasticity is slightly larger for exports than for imports.

Migration and Tourist Flows

Both immigration and tourism have increased significantly in recent decades. International migration in the world has increased from 154 million per year in 1990 to 175 million in 2000 (United Nation 2002). A common perception is that most migrants are moving from poor countries to rich countries, but in reality half of the migrations take place within the developing countries. One cause of this growth is the globalization process that enhanced mobility and improved accessibility to different places (Poot et al. 2008). In comparison, the growth in tourism was even stronger with 700 million worldwide tourist trips in 2000 as compared to 25 million in 1950 (Fischer 2007). The globalization process and the related tourism together spread further the information regarding economic prospects and tend to encourage people to move to places where they can find better economic opportunities. For example: prosperous places like London and Paris attract vast numbers of tourists, while some of these tourists become subsequently temporary or permanent migrants in the host country. So, tourism encourages migration. Conversely, migrants travel back to their home countries for short visits and their friends and relatives visit them in the host country. Therefore, migration boosts tourism. Thus, migration and tourism tend to become mutually interacting geographic phenomena whose importance is rapidly growing. Migration-related tourism seems to become an important segment of global tourism.

A study on undocumented migrant workers in the Dutch household sector

Purpose – Migration waves have a significant impact on cultural diversity. But in various sections of the economy the authors observe large numbers of unregistered workers. The purpose of this paper is to map out the socio-economic situation of unregistered migrant workers and aims to identify the drivers of their labour market position in terms of job opportunities and salary. The specific focus of this study will be on undocumented immigrant workers involved in the domestic work (or household) sector in the Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach – This paper offers empirical evidence on two levels: the individual level (migrant domestic workers), and the household level (from an employer perspective). Findings – The paper finds that years of work experience and social network participation – in particular, family relationships and a combination of friends with employer relationships – increases the chances of finding a higher paid irregular job. From a household perspective, there appears to be a posi...

Foresights, Scenarios, and Sustainable Development: A Pluriformity Perspective

‘If … then …’ is a conditional proposition that describes precisely a logical causal statement about possible future events. Obtaining due insight into an uncertain future has been a permanent source of rational speculation in the history of mankind. In the Hellenistic period, the foundation for systematic foresight analysis was already laid by the Oracle of Delphi which – in contrast to popular wisdom – was not based on the incoherent utterances of an ancient intoxicated goddess but on evidence-based information collected by her through listening to the subordinates of any political figure who wanted to pick up a useful hint on how to face the future. The medieval and premodern literature was also full of seemingly rational attempts to predict uncertain future events, such as catastrophes or wars. The aim to acquire political power was often an inspiration for obtaining strategic future information on unknown territories, as is clearly reflected in the support of leading dynasties in European countries for the great voyages of discovery from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century.

Immigrants’ socio-economic achievements and cultural diversity : Economic effects of individual and local cultural capital

Purpose An interest in social transmission as a source of welfare and income inequality in a society has re-emerged recently with new vigour in leading economic research (see Piketty, 2014). This paper presents a mixed Bourdieu-Mincer (B-M) type micro-economic model which provides a testable mechanism for culturally biased socio-economic inter-generational transmission. In particular, the operationalisation of this mixed B-M type model seeks to find evidence for individual and local cultural capital effects on the economic achievements, in addition to the human capital effect, for both migrants and locals in the Netherlands. The purpose of this paper is to examine two sources of wage differential in the local labour market, namely: individual cultural capital (approximated by immigrant background), which affects schooling results; and the local cultural capital (approximated with the cultural milieu), which directly biases the selection of employees. Design/methodology/approach The study utilises the 2007-2009 data set for higher professional education (in Dutch termed HBO) graduates registered in the Maastricht database. The Mincer-type equation is augmented with a control variable for the local cultural milieu. The authors cope with this model empirically by means of 2SLS and 3SLS methods. Findings The authors find convincing evidence for the existence of both an individual cultural capital and a local cultural capital effect on schooling and wage differentials. This can be interpreted as a migrant background effect leading to a disadvantaged position on the labour market due to less frequently attending high-quality secondary schools. Originality/value More importantly, the authors find evidence for a classical Myrdalian effect of self-fulfilling prophecy, in which graduates with second-generation migrant background have a disadvantaged position due to access only to poorer quality of schooling.