EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

THE HETEROGENEITY OF IMMIGRANTS, HOST COUNTRIES' INCOME AND PRODUCTIVITY: A CHANNEL ACCOUNTING APPROACH

Mariya Aleksynska and Ahmed Tritah

Economic Inquiry, 2015, vol. 53, issue 1, 150-172

Abstract: This article exploits changes in the distribution of immigrants across 20 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries from 1960 to 2005 in order to assess their contribution to income of destination countries. The non‐random sorting of immigrants across countries is addressed by using an instrumental variable strategy. The instrument is built by estimating a bilateral migration model incorporating exogenous origin country determinants of migration. Aggregate results reveal that immigrants have a positive effect on income that works primarily through total factor productivity (TFP). We further construct a novel dataset from censuses and labor force surveys to explore the information on the age of immigrants. Contrasting income effects are found across age groups: a higher share of immigrants among the youth has a negative impact on aggregate income, while a higher share of immigrants among prime‐aged workers has a positive effect. We interpret this disparity as short‐term versus medium‐term effects. Adjustments over time involve changes in TFP but also in the human capital of the native‐born. (JEL F22, J24, J31, O31)

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12141

Related works:
Working Paper: The Heterogeneity Of Immigrants, Host Countries' Income And Productivity: A Channel Accounting Approach (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:53:y:2015:i:1:p:150-172

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... s.aspx?ref=1465-7295

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Tim Salmon

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:53:y:2015:i:1:p:150-172