Selecting only the best and brightest? An assessment of migration policy selectivity and its effectiveness

Glenn Rayp, Ilse Ruyssen and Samuel Standaert

Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium from Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Abstract: This paper introduces a new set of comprehensive and cross-country-comparable indexes of migration policy selectivity. Crucially, these reflect the multidimensional nature of the differential treatment of migrants. We use these indexes to study the evolution of migration policy selectivity and estimate how they affect migration flows. Combining all publicly available and relevant data since WWII, we build three composite indexes that identify selectivity in terms of skills, economic resources and nationality. First, we use these to characterise migration policies in 42 countries between 1990 and 2014. Second, we analyse the effectiveness of migration policy selectivity by estimating its impact on migration flows. Each of the three dimensions of selectivity is found to affect the size and structure of migration flows significantly.

Keywords: Migration Policy; International Migration; Selectivity; Effectiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 C43 F22 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-mig and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rug:rugwps:23/1062

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