Could the decrease in Belgian government debt-servicing costs offset increased age-related expenditure? CEPS Working Document No. 2017/06, June 2017

This paper argues that none of the secular trends that have driven down real interest rates over the past two decades is likely to reverse in the near future. Thus, real rates can be expected to remain low and government debt-servicing costs to decrease further over the coming years. Based on these findings, the authors calculate direct gains accruing to the Belgian government from lower net debt interest payments. The savings on interest payments are then contrasted with the projected future increases in age-related expenditures on pensions, education and long-term care. The findings indicate that, if savings on interest payments are channelled to cover the increases in age-related expenditures, they will fully offset financing needs in these areas until 2030. The calculations are robust to a moderate increase in interest rates

Family reunification for migrants under subsidiary protection in Germany: An instrument for strategic political positioning Matthias Busse and Lars Ludolph. CEPS Commentary, 21 November 2017

The debate over migration policy played a major role in the recent collapse of German coalition talks, a first indication of how the AfD changed the country’s political discourse

Migrants in the Mediterranean: Easy and difficult solutions. CEPS Commentary, 12 October 2017

On the issue of migration, all eyes are now focused on the so-called central Mediterranean route, which runs primarily from Libya to Italy. Until July of this year, irregular crossings from Libya to Italy were on course to reach a record high for 2017 of more than 200,000 arrivals. Given its reputation as the world’s deadliest migration route, this would have meant a record number of drownings as well

Mediterranean Migrants: Little help on offer for Italy. CEPS Commentary, 6 July 2017

The Italian Prime Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, last week issued a plea to his European colleagues for help in dealing with migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Combined with the threat to close off Italian ports to vessels disembarking migrants from search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, the Italian government called for more burdensharing generally in distributing migrants across the EU. This entreaty was reiterated on Sunday, July 2nd, in a meeting of Justice and Home Affairs ministers from Italy, France and Germany. It is certain to feature predominantly at the EU meeting of Justice and Home Affairs ministers on July 6th and 7th

Barriers to humanitarian migration, victimisation and integration outcomes: evidence from Germany

In this paper, we link the peril of asylum seekers’ migratory journey to economically quantifiable outcomes in the destination country using refugee survey data from Germany collected in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis. We start by showing that, accounting for selection effects, physical victimisation during the journey to Germany is strongly associated with significantly lower mental well-being and general health upon arrival in the destination. The physical victimisation experience severely distorts the human capital investment decision by leading affected refugees to favour joining the labour force and engaging in part-time and marginal employment over pursuing host-country education. We place our findings into both the psychiatric and experimental economic literature, which suggest that experiencing physical trauma in vulnerable situations results in a "loss of future directedness" or "impatience" among the victimised, leading them to discount future payoffs more heavily

Essays in the economics of migration

This thesis comprises four empirical essays that examine different issues in the economics of migration. The common theme to all four essays is the idea that migration is a phenomenon with economic implications for the country of origin, migrants themselves and the destination country. To reap the benefits of migration, it is necessary to understand the challenges and barriers at the various stages of the migratory journey that could reduce welfare and that may require policy interventions - or changes in policy - to overcome them. The research carried out within this PhD project aims to make a contribution to our understanding of the economic aspects of these challenges. The first essay examines a stage of the humanitarian migration process from developing to developed countries that has thus far been underexplored in economics: The journey itself. Asylum seekers migrating from developing countries to Europe frequently experience victimisation events during their journey. The essay links these potentially traumatic events to economic integration outcomes in Germany, one of the main recipient countries of asylum seekers during the 2015 migration crisis. The study shows that physical victimisation during the journey to Germany is strongly associated with significantly lower mental well-being upon arrival in the destination. The effect on the victimised also leads to a "loss of future directedness", which distorts one of the major decisions newly-arrived migrants have to make: Compared to non-victimised migrants, physically victimised refugees are more likely to engage in part-time and marginal employment instead of pursuing host-country education in the first years after arrival. The second essay follows up on these findings. The essay analyses the long-term value of formal host-country education for refugees vis-à-vis those the same level of education attained in the country of origin. The study deploys 22 years of Austrian microcensus data and analyses the labour market position of forcibly displaced young Bosnians who arrived in Austria during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Exploiting the age at the time of forced migration as an instrument for the probability of receiving host-country instead of origin country education, the results show that attaining a formal degree in the hostcountry significantly reduces the probability of working in low-quality jobs even after more than two decades of stay in the hosting country. The third essay shifts the focus to the early stage of the migration process: It studies 5 the role of household income in developing countries in the decision to send a household member as a labor migrant. The essay analyses the effect of exogenous global crop price changes on migration from agricultural households and finds that migration rates from very poor households indeed increase when the world market price of locally-grown crop rises. The finding suggests that for these households, additional income can relax their liquidity constraint and facilitate migration. The fourth and final essay then turns the attention back to the destination country. The study analyses the impact of the large, unexpected and spatially heterogenous migration wave from Central and Eastern European countries following their EU accession in 2004 on local level redistributive spending in England. While the arrival of migrants indeed affected public spending and locally generated revenue, the study finds no evidence that these changes in local service provision are driven by a decrease in the local willingness to redistribute following the arrival of outsiders. Rather, the results suggest that the demographic characteristics of Central and Eastern European migrants, in particular their young age, reduced demand for locally supplied social care services

Summit dinner: Important starters before the Migration main course. CEPS Commentary, 14 December 2017

Migration is the main course on the menu for tonight’s EU Summit dinner. We respectfully offer the Heads of State three starters to stimulate their appetite and thoughts before the serious discussions begin

Can regular replace irregular migration across the Mediterranean? CEPS Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration (MEDAM), 27 June 2019

Irregular migration from Africa across the Mediterranean to the EU has become a central policy issue. While the establishment of a Libyan SAR zone and of a Libyan coast guard has lowered the numbers crossing the Mediterranean since mid-2017, there are strong concerns about the sustainability of the current approach and its reliability given the severe political instability in Libya. Due to this state of affairs, increasing legal access to the EU – for study and work purposes – has re-appeared on the European agenda as one potential way to reduce irregular crossing in the future. This comes at a time where legal access to the EU labour markets for African citizens has been steadily reduced. Moreover, actions aimed at streamlining access to existing pathways for legal migration, or opening new ones, can be used as lever in improving cooperation in migration management with countries of origin when it comes to returns and readmissions. We review the evidence bearing on to what extent increasing legal access via labour migration is effective in reducing irregular migration. While our focus is on irregular crossings of the Mediterranean, we draw on evidence from different world regions. We conclude that increasing legal pathways for migration from Africa to Europe, in itself, will have only a limited effect on the number of people trying to cross irregularly. Substitution can take place only if expansion of legal pathways – tailored to labour market needs and migrant profiles – is envisaged in a comprehensive policy mix including strong enforcement of migration legislation (i.e. control of employers at destination together with border control) and streamlining of recruitment procedures

Can regular replace irregular migration across the Mediterranean? Project Report. CEPS MEDAM Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration, June 2019

Irregular migration from Africa across the Mediterranean to the EU has become a central policy issue. While the establishment of a Libyan SAR zone and of a Libyan coast guard has lowered the numbers crossing the Mediterranean since mid-2017, there are strong concerns about the sustainability of the current approach and its reliability given the severe political instability in Libya. Due to this state of affairs, increasing legal access to the EU – for study and work purposes – has re-appeared on the European agenda as one potential way to reduce irregular crossing in the future. This comes at a time where legal access to the EU labour markets for African citizens has been steadily reduced. Moreover, actions aimed at streamlining access to existing pathways for legal migration, or opening new ones, can be used as lever in improving cooperation in migration management with countries of origin when it comes to returns and readmissions. We review the evidence bearing on to what extent increasing legal access via labour migration is effective in reducing irregular migration. While our focus is on irregular crossings of the Mediterranean, we draw on evidence from different world regions. We conclude that increasing legal pathways for migration from Africa to Europe, in itself, will have only a limited effect on the number of people trying to cross irregularly. Substitution can take place only if expansion of legal pathways – tailored to labour market needs and migrant profiles – is envisaged in a comprehensive policy mix including strong enforcement of migration legislation (i.e. control of employers at destination together with border control) and streamlining of recruitment procedures

Gender Inequality and Integration of Non-EU Migrants in the EU. CEPS Policy Insights No 2017/06, February 2017

The integration of refugees and migrants in general into the labour market – and into society at large –stands at the forefront of current policy debate. And rightly so: better integration enriches not only the migrant, but also the host country’s population and its public finances. A number of recent noteworthy publications have therefore studied the labour market integration process and how to improve it. While the diverse background of new arrivals is often acknowledged in these studies, on-the-ground labour market integration programmes too often follow a one-size-fits-all approach. In this Policy Insights study, we argue that there is a particularly strong case for labour market integration measures specifically geared towards female migrants. The primary reason is the traditionally low female labour market participation in the majority of source countries, which translates into a large excess gender gap in labour market integration among non-EU migrants in Europe. This gap is further mirrored by other important aspects of societal integration. We argue that this lack of labour market integration inhibits wider societal integration of female migrants. Hence, integration efforts need to more explicitly take the gender dimension into account and further analyse the determinants of the gender gap in integration. A mapping of successful initiatives targeting migrant women, as has been done in recent best-practice guidelines, is therefore essential. However, these studies mainly stress that the number of targeted measures is currently insufficient