China, South Africa and the Lewis Model

The paper uses the Lewis model as a framework for examining the labour market progress of two labour-abundant countries, China and South Africa, towards labour shortage and generally rising labour real incomes. In the acuteness of their rural-urban divides, forms of migrant labour, rapid rural-urban migration, and high and rising real wages in the formal sector, the two economies are surprisingly similar. They differ, however, in the dynamism of their formal sector growth of output and employment, and in the growth of their labour forces. Whereas China - a labour-surplus economy par excellence despite unemployment until recently taking only a disguised form - is moving rapidly in the direction of labour scarcity, South Africa which historically has been short of labour - is moving towards increased labour surplus in the form of open unemployment. The paper draws on research previously conducted by the author in separate research projects on the two countries.China; South Africa; Lewis model; wages; labour supply; rural-urban migration; unemployment

Economic determinants of international labour migration in EU/EFTA region 1985-1999

This paper has been written within the framework of the research program 'Towards a dynamic scenario model for socio-economic determinants of population dynamics in Europe'. Within this research program, one PhD project is concerned with international migration. International migration hypotheses often lack a sound theoretical background. In the PhD project 'Economic Determinants of International Migration in Europe', an attempt is made to improve this theoretical background by quantifying the relationship between international migration and economic indicators. The aim of this paper is to estimate the influence of economic determinants on the most important international migration types in Europe in the period 1985-2000. Quantifying the influence of economic determinants on the most important international migration types in this period may contribute to the discussion about the demographic consequences of future economic development in Europe and extension of the European Union. Migrant flows, for which sufficient data are available will be used. The economic determinants that are estimated are GDP per capita, and unemployment. Furthermore, the effect of the migrant stock is taken into account as well. Pooled cross-sectional time series analysis will be used in separate models for each migration type.

Regional growth centres - the most attractive location in Finland?

The present study analyses migration patterns in Finland to test if micro- economic evidence for the Harris-Todaro model is found. The H-T hypothesis states that rural-urban migration is a results of differences in expected earnings and employment prospects. In addition to the basic framework factors such as distance-decay and human capital accumulation are considered. The recent migration trend in Finland show concentration of population in a handful of urban growth centres. Human capital is flowing towards those regions while rural areas are losing theirs. In recent years this tends has become more apparent, though the analysis of long-run trends shows that the urban pattern has been developing over several decades. Both the H-T hypothesis and the distance-decay hypothesis are supported by the data. Human capital (young, educated individuals) shows also greater concentration, as expected.

Modelling urban growth: a prospective population, housing and job location model.

Demographic projections have become in a useful tool in the planning of urban land provision. In the context of a more comprehensive research orientated towards the construction of a system to evaluate the impact of new infrastructure and urban projects on the efficiency of metropolis (i.e. in terms of mobility and environmental sustenaibility) a prospective urban growth model has been built-in. In this paper such a model is exposed. The model simulates the natural movement of population across the time and space, at the time that allows for migration according to the capacity of labor market to absorb new working migrants. The outputs suggest the total population, employment and housing demand in a spatial-temporal framework. Results for Catalonia and the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona illustrate the use of the model.

Pastoral Care to Migrants as Care at the 'In-Between': Reflection on Pastoral Care within Congregational Ministry

Pastoral care as a frontline ministry responsible for interfacing with people in migration situations requires models to ensure effective pastoral intervention. This essay contributes towards designing a migrant pastoral assessment and intervention framework within a congregational ministry setting hinging on the notion of migrants as ‘in-between’ people. This model is supplemented by a congregational analysis and hermeneutical model for effective ministry to migrants. 

The role of loyalty in migration intentions: theory and evidence from the EU

Free movement of persons is one of the fundamental values and achievements of the European Union, however, intentions towards mobility vary across and within the member states. Economic literature has remarkable theories to explain migration fl ows and individual selection factors of potential migrants, but it ignores major achievements of other social sciences. This paper builds an economic framework to incorporate the Hirschmanian concept of loyalty into the microeconomic (human capital) model of international migration by using interdependent preferences. Hirschman assumes that even after exiting, loyal people care about their previous communities, thus it imposes a certain psychological ‘exit tax’ on them. Based on this concept, it is hypothesized that people with altruistic motives have weaker intentions to migrate, so the presence of loyalty towards others makes international migration less likely, conveying that loyalty towards local or national community may be responsible for moderate labor mobility among EU member states. Results show that attachment to one’s country makes one’s intention to move abroad in the near future less likely, while loyalty towards one’s city has more moderate impact on their intentions

Pathways towards Legal Migration into the EU: Reappraising concepts, trajectories and policies. CEPS Paperback, September 2017

On 27 January 2017, the Justice and Home Affairs Section of CEPS and the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) of the European Commission co-organised a policy workshop in Brussels entitled “Reappraising the EU legal migration acquis: Legal pathways for a new model of economic migration, and the role of social science research”. The event brought together leading academics, practitioners and European Commission representatives to assess and discuss the state of play in the (internal and external) EU legal migration acquis, and its role in developing legal pathways towards economic migration. Held under the Chatham House Rule, the policy workshop’s roundtable discussions allowed participants to identify and address some of the key challenges, inconsistencies and gaps in the standing EU policies and legislation in the area of legal and economic migration. Scholars involved in EU and nationally funded, collaborative research projects on social science and humanities (SSH) had the opportunity to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge with European Commission officials representing the different services working on legal migration policies. The role and potential of independent academic research in the framework of EU migration policymaking were also discussed. The full programme of the policy workshop is reproduced in the annex of this book

Rational migration policy should tolerate non-zero illegal migration flows: Lessons from modelling the market for illegal migration

The debate on the immigration policies in OECD countries has turned its attention towards illegal migrants. Given that migration flows are determined by immigration laws, the probability of potential detection, penalties for unauthorised migrants and their employers, and on income differences between sending and receiving countries, this paper presents a new approach to the problem of illegal migration, grounded on the economic theory of illegal behaviour. The framework considers the interaction of potential migrants, citizens, employers, and the government. After introducing the supply function of illegal migration and its determinants, the trade-off between social costs and benefits of preventing and combating illegal migration is demonstrated. This trade-off results in an optimal level of migration larger than zero. A complete market model of illegal migration is offered by presentation of a demand curve of illegal migration, based on the tolerance of the society towards clandestine foreigners. Equilibrium forces predict a non-zero level of illegal migration. The rule of law of our legal systems, according to which any illegal activity has to be reduced to zero, bears the danger of producing inefficient disequilibria. A reasonable policy of wanted and unwanted migration should address the question of how to allocate scarce resources. Ignoring social optima and equilibrium forces means to abandon public resources that could be used for other public assignments, such as schooling, or foreign aid, for instance, i.e., measures that could strike the problem of illegal migration at its root. --