A reason why immigration policy is such a contended issue is that often immigrants end up obtaining the right to vote and, hence, may affect future policies. This paper offers a dynamic, general equilibrium model of immigration policy. In each period, a heterogeneously skilled population chooses an immigration policy by majority vote. Voters anticipate that immigration affects the skill premium and the skill composition of the electorate. The main insight is the existence of a trade-off between skill complementary immigration and the resulting shift in political power. I argue that a reasonably parameterized version of the model is consistent with the main features of US immigration.
We supplement earlier published findings on the academic achievement of the immigrant second generation with an analysis of school contextual effects based on the same large data set used by the best-known prior analyses, the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study. A hierarchical model of contextual and individual-level effects on academic achievement and school attrition reveals patterns that reproduce those found in national student surveys but also others that are unique to the second generation. Among the latter are the resilient negative effect of length of U.S. residence on achievement across school contexts and the fact that strong effects of national origin on grades are attenuated in schools with high proportions of coethnics. Mexican-origin students display significant disadvantages in achievement and retention that are generally compounded, not alleviated, by the schools that they attend. A theoretical explanation of this pattern is advanced, and its practical implications are discussed.
The objective of the study is to analyse relationship between migration and the regional redistribution of human capital. The analysis follows the human capital approach that considers migration as a result of rational decision making and a utility maximization process. The emphasis is on the decision making of a potential migrant. The migration decision is assumed to be the outcome of personal, household and regional characteristics. The results of the study indicate the following. First, it supports the generally accepted hypothesis that the highly educated are more prone to move than the rest of the population. Second, the regional characteristics of both the origin area and the destination area also have a significant effect on migratory behaviour. Individuals are more likely to migrate from remote regions to centres of economic activity. Third, as a result of two previous findings, reallocation of human capital seems to be taking place in Finland.
Voluntary and enforced compliance by school districts has reduced the segregation of U.S. public schools. A key question is whether desegregation programs have raised lifetime earnings for blacks, either through the expansion of interracial contact or improvements in school quality. This paper uses information on school demographic composition, district desegregation efforts, school resources, and the academic performance of non-blacks to investigate the impact of school desegregation on academic attainment and earnings. The results provide support for the belief that raising school quality is likely to be much more effective than the reallocation of students among schools as a means to improve academic and labor market outcomes for blacks.
The paper looks at the link between human capital and regional economic performance in the EU. Using indicators of educational stock, the matching of educational supply and labour demand, and migration extracted from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), it identifies that the economic performance of European regions over the last few years is generally associated with differences in human capital endowment. However, and in contrast to previous studies, the results highlight that factors such as the matching of educational supply and local labour needs, job satisfaction, and migration may have a stronger connection to economic performance than the traditional measures of educational stock.
When productivity is fostered by both the individual's human capital and by the average level of human capital in the economy, individuals underinvest in human capital. A strictly positive probability of migration to a richer country, by raising both the level of human capital formed by optimizing individuals in the home country and the average level of human capital of nonmigrants in the country, can enhance welfare and nudge the economy toward the social optimum. Under a well-controlled restrictive migration policy, the welfare of all workers is higher than in the absence of this policy.
When productivity is fostered by an individual's own human capital as well as by the economy-wide average level of human capital, individuals under-invest in human capital. The provision of subsidies for the formation of human capital, conditional on the subsidy being self-financed by tax revenues, can bring the economy to its socially optimal level of human capital. Yet a strictly positive probability of migration to a richer country, by raising both the level of human capital formed by optimizing individuals in the home country and the average level of human capital of non-migrants in the country, can enhance welfare and nudge the economy toward the social optimum. Indeed, under a well-controlled, restrictive migration policy the welfare of all workers is higher than in the absence of this policy.
Controlling for the endogeneity of activity choice and considering both household-head and family schooling, we find evidence of high returns from schooling in both crop and noncrop activities. As schooling levels increase, the returns from schooling shift away from crop production. Failure to control for activity selection and family schooling is likely to result in biased estimates of the returns from schooling in individual activities.
This paper presents a general-equilibrium model where human capital investment increases specialization and exposes skilled workers to region-specific earnings risk. Interjurisdictional mobility of skilled labor mitigates these risks; state-contingent migration of skilled labor also improves efficiency. With perfect capital markets, labor-marker integration raises welfare and reduces ex post earnings inequality. If instead human capital investment call only be financed through local tares, labor-market integration leads to interjurisdictional fiscal competition, shifting the burden of taxation to low-skilled immobile workers. Decentralized public provision of human capital investment creates earnings inequalities and is inefficient.
This article assesses the association between migration (both international and internal) and the employment status and earnings of young non-college-educated native White, Black Hispanic, Asian, and immigrant white-collar and blue-collar workers in the United Stares during the decade from 1980 to 1990. The authors present results that only partly support the claim that internal migrants and immigrants are substitutes for native workers. On one hand, the authors found that migration (flow) was not a major factor associated with the increased joblessness and decreased wages experienced by some native groups during the 1980s, particularly among blue-collar workers. On the other hand, the authors did find that changes in the foreign-born composition of an industrial sector (a measure of immigrant stock) were associated with increased joblessness of native workers and decreased joblessness of immigrant workers.
This paper models the assimilation process of migrants and shows evidence of the complementarity between their destination experience and upon-arrival human capital. Bayesian learning is assessed, using panel data of wages from Bangkok, Thailand. It is found that (i) schooling returns are lower for migrants than for natives, (ii) the accumulation of destination experience raises wages for migrants, (iii) the experience effect is greater for more educated agents and (iv) the complementarity increases as destination experience accumulates. The results imply that more educated migrants have higher learning efficiency and can perform tasks of greater complexity, ultimately yielding higher wage growth in the destination market.
This paper presents the main results of a study of the: effects of education las well as other household assets) on the choice of activities and incomes of rural Mexican households. Our study examines the various income sources, as well as the education of the household's head and its members. Implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment.
Since China's economic opening and reforms-in 1978, the country has broadened and deepened its exchanges and relations with other countries. This has contributed to the increase in the scale of international migration of highly skilled Chinese abroad. The impact of the migration of highly skilled Chinese on China and the relevant nations particularly deserve attention and study. Following the earlier migration flows mainly to the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the migration of highly skilled Chinese to Europe has become a notable new trend. Currently, the flow of international migration of highly skilled Chinese personnel is mainly oriented toward Europe and the United States. While studying abroad has been the main form of migration of the skilled, this has now been joined by the migration of technical and professional staff, and the trend is increasing. The main country of destination for Chinese students is the United States, which absorbs more than half of the total, while Australia and Canada receive the largest number of skilled Chinese manpower. The United States also receives a large number of Chinese technical personnel, but its proportion has declined, while the flow to Europe has sharply increased. This development may be attributed to the global expansion of economic, scientific and technological, as well as cultural and educational exchanges and cooperation. But it is also the result of an increase in the educational investment made by the Chinese people following the continuous increase in China's economic strength and the population's personal income. Of greater importance are the gaps between China and Europe at the scientific, technological, and educational levels and the research and marketing environment. The intervening changes in labour market and immigration policies in European and American countries accelerate the trend further. For all of these and other reasons, the spatial distribution of Chinese students will become more balanced and play a positive role in the promotion of mutually beneficial exchanges between China and other countries.
© 2004 European Expert Network on Economics of Education This e-mail address is protected against spambots. Please activate JavaScript in order to see them. | Home | Site Map | Contacts | Impressum | Printversion
