Diasporas

Michel Beine, Frédéric Docquier and Caglar Ozden

No 2009002, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: Migration flows are shaped by a complex combination of self-selection and out-selection mechanisms. In this paper, we analyze how existing diasporas (the stock of people born in a country and living in an another one) affect the size and human-capital structure of current migration flows. Our analysis exploits a bilateral data set on international migration by educational attainment from 195 countries to 30 OECD countries in 1990 and 2000. Based on simple micro-foundations and controlling for various determinants of migration, we find diasporas increase migration flows, lower their average educational level and lead to higher concentration of low-skill migrants. Interestingly, diasporas explain majority of the variability of migration flows and selection. This suggests that, without changing the generosity of family reution programs, education-based selection rules are likely to have moderate impact. Our results are highly robust to the econometric techniques, accounting for the large proportion of zeros and endogeneity problems

Keywords: Migration; self-selection; network-diaspora externalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41
Date: 2009-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
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http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2009002.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Diasporas (2011)
Working Paper: Diasporas (2009)
Working Paper: Diasporas (2009)
Working Paper: Diasporas (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2009002

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