Migration and comparative advantages: new evidence on the EU-MENA region
Anna Ferragina,
Stefano Iandolo and
Erol Taymaz
International Journal of Manpower, 2021, vol. 42, issue 5, 904-934
Abstract:
Purpose - This study aims to consider how migrants may act as channel of diffusion of knowledge which contributes to the dynamics of trade and comparative advantages of EU and MENA countries for the period 1990–2015. Design/methodology/approach - Adopting an IV approach and a gravity framework to instrument for migration, the authors document how variations in stocks of migrants coming from (in) countries that are already competitive exporters of a given product impact on the probability that the destination (home) country starts to export competitively new products or succeed in exporting more intensively. Findings - Controlling for potential confounding factors which can be correlated to knowledge flows and productivity shifts, the authors find trade-promoting effects via migration flows (mostly immigration) between the two areas, testing our hypotheses by different technology classes of products and different specifications. Originality/value - The contribution of this work to the literature is threefold. First, by providing evidence on international knowledge diffusion induced by migration flows between MENA and EU regions, like no other work before, the authors document the effects of migration on trade and comparative advantages. Second, unlike standard literature on migration-trade link, the authors focus more on long-term structural changes in comparative advantages than on trade volumes. Third, we exploit how the effect of migration on margins of trade varies according to different types of goods, classified by technological level.
Keywords: Trade-migration link; Panel data approach; Trade; Extensive and intensive margin; F14; F22; L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Related works:
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:eme:ijmpps:ijm-08-2020-0395
DOI: 10.1108/IJM-08-2020-0395
Access Statistics for this article
International Journal of Manpower is currently edited by Professor Adrian Ziderman
More articles in International Journal of Manpower from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().