Migration, Skill Composition and Growth

Young-Bae Kim (), Paul Levine () and Emanuela Lotti ()

No 610, School of Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, University of Surrey

Abstract: The UK, with its relatively liberal immigration policies following recent enlarge- ments, has been one of the main recipients of migrants from new EU member states. This paper poses the questions: what is the effect of immigration on a receiving econ- omy such as the UK? Is the effect beneficial or adverse for growth? Does emigration have brain drain effects on sending economies? How differently would skilled (or un- skilled) migration affect both receiving and sending economies? What factors would contribute to immigration/emigration benefits/costs and economic growth driven by migration? Who are the winners and losers in both the sending and host regions? We utilize an endogenous growth two-bloc model with labour mobility of different skill compositions to address these questions. We show that migration, in general, is beneficial to the receiving country and increases the world growth rate. With remit- tances, the sending country in aggregate can also benefit. The only exception is in the case of unskilled migration, which can actually have a detrimental impact on the world growth rate. This possibility however seems to be unlikely by our examination of migration trends. Winners are migrants, and the skill group in the region that sees its relative size decrease.

Keywords: Migration; Labour mobility; Skill composition; Economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 F43 J24 J61 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2010-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg, nep-hrm and nep-mig
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Migration, Skill Composition and Growth (2010)
Journal Article: MIGRATION, SKILL COMPOSITION AND GROWTH (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sur:surrec:0610

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