Immigration, occupational choice and public employment

in Annales d'Economie et de Statistique (2017)

This paper investigates the theoretical effects of immigration in an occupational choice model with three sectors: a low-skilled, a high-skilled and a public sector. The originality of our approach is to ... [more ▼]

This paper investigates the theoretical effects of immigration in an occupational choice model with three sectors: a low-skilled, a high-skilled and a public sector. The originality of our approach is to consider (i) inter-sectoral mobility of labor and (ii) public employment. The combination of these two features yields a new mechanism by which immigration can have positive effects. The model demonstrates that immigration increases wages in the high-skilled and the public sectors, provided that the immigrant workforce is not too large and the access to public jobs is not too easy. The average wage of natives may also increase accordingly. Moreover, immigration may improve workers’ welfare in each sector. Finally, the mechanism underlying these results does not require complementarity between natives and immigrants. [less ▲]

On the Robustness of Brain Drain Estimates

in Annales d'Economie et de Statistique (2010), 97

Recent theoretical studies suggest that migration prospects can raise the ex- pected return to human capital and thus foster education investment at home or, in other words, induce a brain gain. In a ... [more ▼]

Recent theoretical studies suggest that migration prospects can raise the ex- pected return to human capital and thus foster education investment at home or, in other words, induce a brain gain. In a recent paper we used the Docquier and Marfouk (2006) data set on emigration rates by education level to examine the impact of brain drain migration on gross (pre-migration) human capital for- mation in developing countries. We found a positive e¤ect of skilled migration prospects on human capital growth in a cross-section of 127 developing coun- tries, with a short-run elasticity of about 5 percent. In this paper we assess the robustness of our results to the use of alternative brain drain measures, de nitions of human capital, and functional forms. We nd that the results hold using alternative brain drain measures controlling for whether migrants acquired their skills in the home or in the host country. We also regress other indicators of human capital investment on skilled migration rates and nd a positive e¤ect on youth literacy while the e¤ect on school enrolment depends on the exact functional speci cation chosen. Finally, we nd our resuls to be robust to using the ratio of skilled to unskilled migration rates (instead of just the former) and to controlling for the demoraphic structure of the population. This [less ▲]