Free vs. Controlled Migration: Bilateral Country Study

Assaf Razin and Jackline Wahba

No 16831, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper tests the differential effects of the generosity of the welfare state under free migration and under policy-controlled migration, distinguishing between source developing and developed countries. We utilize free-movement within the EU to examine the free migration regime and compare that to immigration into the EU from two other groups, developed and developing source countries, to capture immigration-restricted regimes. We standardize cross-country education quality differences by using the Hanushek-Woessmann (2009) cognitive skills measure. We find strong support for the "Magnet Hypothesis" under the free-migration regime, and the "Fiscal Burden Hypothesis" under the immigration- restricted regime even after controlling for differences in returns to skills in source and host countries. We also find a significant differences across host-country policy regimes in the effects of returns to skills on the skill mix of immigrants.

JEL-codes: F0 F2 F22 H10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02
Note: IFM
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Assaf Razin & Jackline Wahba, 2015. "Welfare Magnet Hypothesis, Fiscal Burden, and Immigration Skill Selectivity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(2), pages 369-402, April.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16831.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Welfare Magnet Hypothesis, Fiscal Burden, and Immigration Skill Selectivity (2015)
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:nbr:nberwo:16831

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16831

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().