The Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis and Elderly Migration

Oscar Avila-Montealegre, Mauricio Rodríguez () and Hernando Zuleta

Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, 2014, vol. 32, issue 74, No 74, 8 pages

Abstract: We present a model with two Overlapping Generations (young and old) and two final goods: a) a tradable good that is produced using capital and labor, and b) a non-tradable good that is produced using labor as unique input. We maintain the fundamental assumption of perfect factor mobility between sectors so the model is consistent with the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis. On top of this, we allow for one of the two generations (the elderly) to migrate between economies. Given the general equilibrium structure of our model, we can examine the effect of the propensity to save on migration and the relative price of the non-tradable good. In this setting, we find that the elderly have incentives to migrate from economies where productivity is high to economies with low productivity because of the lower cost of living (in more general terms, the elderly migrate from wealthy countries to countries with lower incomes). We also find that, for countries with lower incomes, elderly migration has a positive effect on wages and capital accumulation.

Keywords: Tradable and non-tradable; Overlapping generations; Balassa-Samuelson; Elderly migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E22 E23 E24 F21 F22 F43 J14 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1016/S0120-4483(14)70023-5

Related works:
Journal Article: The Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis and Elderly Migration (2014)
Working Paper: The balassa-samuelson hypothesis and elderly migration (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdr:ensayo:v:32:y:2014:i:74:p:1-8

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