Diasporas

Michel Beine, Frédéric Docquier and Caglar Ozden

No 4984, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

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

Keywords: Population Policies; Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement; Human Migrations&Resettlements; Anthropology; International Migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/WPS4984.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Diasporas (2011)
Working Paper: Diasporas (2009)
Working Paper: Diasporas (2009)
Working Paper: Diasporas (2009)
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:wbk:wbrwps:4984

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().