A preliminary assessment of the effects of migration on the production structure in Europe: A labor task approach

We assess the effect of migration on the production structure in a selection of European countries for the pre-Great Recession period 2001-2009. We propose a labor-task approach where the inflow of migrants raises the relative supply of manual-physical (or simple) tasks and therefore favors simple-task intensive sectors. We use the US O*NET database in conjunction with European labor data to calculate the index of simple-task intensity at the industry and country level. The analysis confirms that a rise in employment migration rates has a generalized positive impact, but that value added increases significantly more in sectors that use more intensively simple tasks. A traditional shift-share instrument is used to overcome possible endogeneity problems

Fiscal Position of Immigrants in Europe: A Quantile Regression Approach

This paper compares the net fiscal position (NFP) of immigrants versus natives using data from theEuropean Survey on Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the period 2007-2015. By employing a quantileregression approach, we find that European and non-European migrants have a different fiscal positionfrom natives only on the extreme tails of the NFP distribution. Non-EU migrants contribute more thannatives in the top quantile of the NFP, whereas they are more fiscally depend in the bottom quantile. Wealso examine the relationship between our calculated migrants’ fiscal position and the fiscal perception ofEuropean citizens versus migrants as measured in European Social Survey (ESS) data. The negative per-ception in some European countries may be entirely driven by the fiscal position of migrants in the lowestquantile. Our results highlight the critical need to better understand the fiscal contribution of migrants inthe destination countries for a fair and constructive migration policy

Fiscal effects of migrants in Europe: a quantile regression approach

In this paper, we explore the fiscal impact of immigrants in Europe applying a quantile regression approach to data from the European Survey on Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the period 2007-2015. Our estimations show that not only on average but also in almost all income quantiles, the fiscal position of both European and non-European migrants is not significantly different from that of native citizens. Furthermore, non-EU migrants are net contributors as compared to the corresponding native citizens in the Netherlands and Belgium for various quantiles. Lastly, we examine the link between migrants’ fiscal position and the fiscal perception of native European citizens measured using ESS data. We find a conflicting relationship: countries where migrants are perceived negatively are instead countries where they are net fiscal contributors and vice versa

Covid-19 in Africa: lezioni dall’epidemia di Ebola (2014)

La pandemia di Covid-19 può avere conseguenze gravissime nelle economie emergenti e in via sviluppo sia dal punto di vista umanitario che economico. La crescita avviata in alcune regioni, come in alcune parti dell’Africa negli ultimi anni, potrebbe subire una battuta di arresto di lungo periodo poiché l’epidemia potrebbe ridurre drasticamente le risorse umane, oltre che i redditi. Sebbene trattata con relativo successo, l’esperienza dell’epidemia di Ebola in Sierra Leone sembra confermare questo pericolo. Le proposte di intervento ai vari livelli (G-20, Fondo Monetario Internazionale, ecc.) non mancano, come riportiamo qui, ma occorre fare presto

A preliminary assessment of the effects of migration on the production structure in Europe: A labor task approach

We assess the e ffect of migration on the production structure in a selection of European countries for the pre-Great Recession period 2001-2009. We propose a labor-task approach where the inflow of migrants raises the relative supply of manual-physical (or simple) tasks and therefore favors simple-task intensive sectors. We use the US O*NET database in conjunction with European labor data to calculate the index of simple-task intensity at the industry and country level. The analysis confi rms that a rise in employment migration rates has a generalized positive impact, but that value-added increases signi ficantly more in sectors that use more intensively simple tasks. A traditional shift-share instrument is used to overcome possible endogeneity problems

Testing the discrimination hypothesis for female self employment migrants in the UK

peer reviewedWe propose a comparative analysis of migrants in both sectors (employment and self-employment) exploring the gender earning discrimination hypothesis. Using individual micro data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008), we estimate wage equations for employed and self-employed migrants and find that, contrary to our expectations, the average earnings gap in self-employment is almost double compared to the employment sector. This finding reveals that self-employment leads migrant women to an even more precarious and vulnerable position in terms of financial means and economic power. In addition, we explore the determinants of these gaps using the econometric procedure of the decomposition (the Blinder-Oaxaca) model. We find that the variables that explain the gender gap in the employment sector are mostly observable individual characteristics like education or migration duration, confirming the human capital theory, whereas in the self-employment sector, this gap is more due to unobservable individual characteristics. Through our work, we show that including the gender perspective into migration analysis has implications for policy makers enabling them to evaluate these processes from a more social (rather than individualistic) dimension

Risk and Refugee Migration

This paper uses the experimental setup of Tanaka et al. (2010) to measure refugees’ risk preferences. A sample of 218 asylum seekers was interviewed in 2017-18 in Luxembourg. Contrary to studies which focus on risk aversion in general, we analyze its components using a cumulative prospect theory (CPT) framework. We show that refugees exhibit particularly low levels of risk aversion compared to other populations and that CPT provides a better fit for modeling risk attitudes. Moreover, we include randomized temporary treatments provoking emotions and find a small significant impact on probability distortion. Robustness of the Tanaka et al. (2010) experimental framework is confirmed by including treatments regarding the embedding effect. Finally, we propose a theoretical model of refugee migration that integrates the insights from our experimental outcomes regarding the functional form of refugees’ decision under risk and the estimated parameter values. The model is then simulated using the data from our study