Is a Policy of Free Movement of Workers Sustainable? This paper studies the costs and benefits of the adoption of the policy of free movement for workers. For the countries to agree on uncontrolled movement of workers, the short run costs must be outweighed by the long term benefits that result from better labor market flexibility and income smoothing. We show that such policies are less likely...

Analyzing the Labor Market Activity of Immigrant Families in Germany This paper analyzes whether immigrant families facing credit constraints adopt a family investment strategy wherein, upon arrival, an immigrant spouse invests in host countryspecific human capital while the other partner works to finance the family's current consumption. Using data for West Germany, we do not find evidence for...

Whether immigrants are positively or negatively self-selected is much disputed. Whereas most previous studies have addressed this question by comparing the wages of immigrants to those of U.S. natives, this analysis uses occupation to examine the skill level of immigrants. Data on the occupational distribution of individuals granted legal permanent residence in 1995 indicate that the proportion...

This study adopts a GNP function approach in order to examine the impact of migrant labour on domestic factors of production in the United Kingdom. We also examine the relationship between imports and migrants, which are two different facets of globalisation. We find that an increase in the number of unskilled migrants reduces the wages of unskilled domestic workers. However the quantitative im...

Why is there such wide-spread opposition to immigration, although attitudes are generally favorable towards trade? Using concepts from population ethics, this paper shows that impartial observers oppose unskilled immigration if they are inequality-averse, base their decisions on national interest, and have an integrative view of immigration. Moreover, unskilled immigration makes redistribution ...

Migration, Transfers and Child Labor We examine agricultural child labor in the context of emigration, transfers, and the ability to hire outside labor. We start by developing a theoretical background based on Basu and Van, (1998), Basu, (1999) and Epstein and Kahana (2008) and show how hiring labor from outside the household and transfers to the household might induce a reduction in children’s...

This paper compares an Australia-New Zealand currency union to a purely floating exchange rate regime in the context of a structural, two-country open economy model. Micro-foundations support policy assessment by facilitating direct calculation of household welfare. Analysis focuses on changing business cycle volatilities; the role of risk is not considered. At benchmark calibration currency un...

We empirically assess the relationship between cultural assimilation and subjective well-being of immigrants by using the German Socio-Economic Panel, a longitudinal dataset including information on both the economic and non economic conditions of the respondents. We …nd that the more immigrants identify with the German culture and ‡uently speak the national language, the more they report to be...

Using bilateral data on remittance flows to Pakistan for 23 major host countries, in the first study of its kind, the authors examine the effect of transaction costs on foreign remittances. They find that the effect of transaction costs on remittance flows is negative and significant; suggesting that a high cost will either refrain migrant’s from sending money back home or make them remit throu...

This paper uses a two-region, two-period overlapping generations model with international labor mobility to examine the efficacy of using tax policy to internalize the externalities created by international labor migration. While a brain drain tax has a substantial limiting effect on labor migration and a small negative effect on per worker growth, it is found to be a viable solution to the neg...