Xavier Chojnicki

Should the U.S. Have Locked the Heaven's Door? Reassessing the Benefits of the Postwar Immigration

This paper examines the economic impact of the second great immigration wave (1945–2000) on the US economy. Our analysis relies on a computable general equilibrium model combining the major interactions between immigrants and natives (labor market impact, fiscal impact, capital deepening, endogenous education, endogenous inequality). Contrary to recent studies, we show that immigration induced important net gains and small redistributive effects among natives. According to our simulations, the postwar US immigration is beneficial for all natives cohorts and all skill groups. Nevertheless, the gains would have been larger if the US had conducted a more selective immigration policy.

The fiscal impact of immigration in France: a generational accounting approach

The objective of this study is to use both static and dynamic frameworks to compare the benefits that immigrants draw from the public system with their contributions through the taxes that they pay. The main conclusion of this article is that the impact of immigration on welfare systems is weak. Thus, if we compare, on a given date, immigrants’ global contribution to the public administration budget with the volume of transfers they receive, immigrants appear to be relatively favored by the redistribution system. At the same time, even if immigrants seem to pay less taxes and receive more transfers than natives, the difference in distribution between the two populations, with a higher concentration of immigrants in the active age groups and a sparser concentration among the net beneficiaries of the social transfer system, leads to a slightly positive long-term impact of immigration on public finances. However, the impact of immigration remains very slight compared to the global effort that would have to be undertaken to reduce budgetary imbalances.

Macroeconomic Consequences of Global Endogenous Migration: a General Equilibrium Analysis

In this paper, we analyze the demographic and economic consequences of endogenous migrations flows over the coming decades in a multi-regions overlapping generations general equilibrium model (INGENUE 2) in which the world is divided in ten regions. Our analysis offers a global perspective on the consequences of international migration flows. The value-added of the INGENUE 2 model is that it enables us to analyze the effects of international migration on both the destination and the origin regions. A further innovation of our analysis is that international migration is treated as endogenous. In a first step, we estimate the determinants of migration in an econometric model. We show, in particular, that the income differential is one of the key variables explaining migration flows. In a second step, we endogenize migration flows in the INGENUE 2 model. In order to do so, we use the econometrically estimated relationships between demographic and income developments in the INGENUE model, which enables us to project long-run migration flows and to improve on projections of purely demographic models.

Labor migration: Macroeconomic and demographic outlook for Europe and neighborhood regions

In this paper, we assess the demographic and economic consequences of migration in Europe and neighborhood countries using a multi-regions OLG model (INGENUE2). Our quantitative results shed some light on the long term consequences of migration on regions that are not at the same stage in the ageing process. Despite some improvement of their public pension system, it appears that a realistic migration scenario does not offset the effect of ageing in host regions; leaving room for pension reforms. The adverse economic consequences of emigration appear to be all the more important than the origin region is advanced in the ageing process. Finally, we consider and evaluate a policy of immigration in which the decline of the labor force in Western Europe is eschewed.

Fiscal Policy and Educational Attainment in the United States - A Generational Accounting Perspective

In this paper we investigate the consequences of the rise in educational attainment on US generational accounts. We build on the 1995 existing accounts and disaggregate them per schooling level. Contrary to medium- and high-skill newborns, we show that low-skill newborns are characterized by negative generational accounts. Compared to the results obtained with the traditional methodology, our baseline forecast is more optimistic. Nevertheless, the rise in educational attainment is not strong enough to restore the generational balance. Balancing the budget requires increasing taxes by 1.2% or reducing transfers by 2.7%. Our results are robust to the main assumptions.

Disparities in pension systems and financial flows among European countries

We present a quantitative analysis of the impact of differential ageing and pension reforms on capital and labor market and, in particular, on intra-European capital flows. To this end, we develop a stylized general equilibrium model with overlapping generations of heterogeneous agents for the three largest European countries: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The model presents a structure halfway between pure general equilibrium models with rigorous microeconomic foundations and accounting models where the macroeconomic environment remains exogenous. We show that the dynamics of capital accumulation and pension system sustainability are totally different depending on the assumption concerning economic openness. Finally, in the long run, resorting to debt financing seems to be a dead end to finance retirement systems.

Labor Migration from East to West in the Context of European Integration and Changing Socio-political Borders

Labor migration from Eastern Europe and the member countries of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to the Western countries became an important socio-economic issue. Since political systems and the nature of border management in these regions, migrations turned out to be a very complex and unpredictable issue. The purpose of this study is to analyze the region specific actors, practices and policies of migration in the Eastern countries, the possible scenarios and demographic consequences of the future migration flows. In order to address this issue properly, some of the complexities of labor migration phenomenon in the region are uncovered.

Is there a ‘pig cycle’ in the labour supply of doctors? How training and immigration policies respond to physician shortages

Many OECD countries are faced with the considerable challenge of a physician shortage. This paper investigates the strategies that OECD governments adopt and determines whether these policies effectively address these medical shortages. Due to the amount of time medical training requires, it takes longer for an expansion in medical school capacity to have an effect than the recruitment of foreign-trained physicians. Using data obtained from the OECD (2014) and Bhargava et al. (2011), we constructed a unique country-level panel dataset that includes annual data for 17 OECD countries on physician shortages, the number of medical school graduates and immigration and emigration rates from 1991 to 2004. By calculating panel fixed-effect estimates, we find that after a period of medical shortages, OECD governments produce more medical graduates in the long run but in the short term, they primarily recruit from abroad; however, at the same time, certain practising physicians choose to emigrate. Simulation results show the limits of recruiting only abroad in the long term but also highlight its appropriateness for the short term when there is a recurrent cycle of shortages/surpluses in the labour supply of physicians (pig cycle theory).

Aging, Human Capital, and Productivity in France: A Generational Accounting Perspective

The aim of this paper is to highlight the potential productivity gains resulting from improvements in the (i) educational attainment and (ii) health status of the working‐age population. For that purpose, we develop a Generational Accounting Model applied to the French economy. Using the conventional methodology of generational accounting, we first estimate the adjustments that will be necessary to ensure the sustainability of French fiscal policy in the long term under the assumption that individual taxes and transfers grow at the same rate as labor productivity. However, this assumption does not account for the explicit determinants of individual productivity. Therefore, we then explain how productivity growth is partly due to the French populations skill level and its health level, which is approximated by the survival rate of adults. We estimate that the increased educational attainment and improved adult survival rate in France generate potentially important productivity gains that could significantly challenge the weight of the burden induced by aging. Therefore, we estimate that this change could reduce the tax burden bequeathed to future generations by 79 percent. Our results are robust to the main assumptions.

Global Ageing and the Macroeconomic Consequences of Migration from Neighborhood Countries to Europe

In this paper, we assess the demographic and economic consequences of migration in Europe and neighborhood countries using a multi-region CGE-OLG model (INGENUE2). Our quantitative results shed some light on the long-term consequences of migration in regions that are not at the same stage in the ageing process. Despite some improvement in the public pension systems of host regions, it appears that a realistic migration scenario does not offset the effect of ageing in host regions, leaving room for more pension reforms. The adverse economic consequences of emigration appear to be more serious if the region of origin is advanced in the ageing process. Finally, we consider and evaluate a policy of immigration in which the decline of the labor force in WE is eschewed.