Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?

@article{Clemens2011EconomicsAE,
  title={Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?},
  author={Michael A. Clemens},
  journal={Behavioral \& Experimental Economics eJournal},
  year={2011}
}
  • Michael A. Clemens
  • Published 1 August 2011
  • Economics
  • Behavioral & Experimental Economics eJournal
What is the greatest single class of distortions in the global economy? One contender for this title is the tightly binding constraints on emigration from poor countries. Vast numbers of people in low-income countries want to emigrate from those countries but cannot. How large are the economic losses caused by barriers to emigration? Research on this question has been distinguished by its rarity and obscurity, but the few estimates we have should make economists' jaws hit their desks. The gains… 
View on SSRN
aeaweb.org
517 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
42
Background Citations
228
Methods Citations
14
Results Citations
15

517 Citations

Immigration and Globalization : A Review

A question lies at the core of any examination of the link between immigration and globalization: what exactly would a world without national borders—a world in which people could move freely from…

The Grecian horse: does immigration lead to the deterioration of American institutions?

Concerns about the institutional impact of immigration, particularly in the United States, are not new. We can trace them back to Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. More…

The Grecian horse: does immigration lead to the deterioration of American institutions?

Concerns about the institutional impact of immigration, particularly in the United States, are not new. We can trace them back to Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. More…

The Dynamic Implications of Liberalizing Global Migration

This paper quantitatively investigates the short- and long-run effects of liberalizing global migration on the world distribution of income. We develop and parametrize a dynamic model of the world…

The aggregate and redistributive effects of emigration

The 2004 EU enlargement has triggered large and rapid migration movements from the new to the old member states. The scale of this outflow was unprecedented in the CEE history and its structure was…

The global costs from migration barriers

Over the last decade, economic research on international migration and development has grown rapidly. In particular, the debate on the global efficiency and inequality implications of migration…

Trading Goods or Human Capital: The Gains and Losses from Economic Integration

In this paper, I quantify the economic consequences of liberalizing migration in the OECD and compare them with those of a hypothetical liberalization of trade across the OECD. First, I investigate…

Does emigration benefit the stayers? Evidence from EU enlargement

Around 9 % of the Lithuanian workforce emigrated to Western Europe after the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. I exploit this emigration wave to study the effect of emigration on wages in…

Economic Freedom and Mass Migration: Evidence from Israel

The economic case for free immigration is nearly identical to the case for free trade. They both rely on a greater division of labor based on comparative advantage to ensure that allowing the free…

Globalizing labor and the world economy: the role of human capital

We develop a dynamic model of the world economy that jointly endogenizes individual decisions about fertility, education and migration. We then use it to compare the short- and long-term effects of…
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 189 REFERENCES

The Economic Costs to International Labor Restrictions: Revisiting the Empirical Discussion

Trade Costs

This paper surveys the measurement of trade costs --- what we know, and what we don't know but may usefully attempt to find out. Partial and incomplete data on direct measures of costs go together…

After the Famine: Emigration from Ireland, 1850–1913

This article examines the determinants of emigration from post-Famine Ireland. As Irish real wages rose relative to those in destination countries, the emigration rate fell. We argue, from time…

Emigration and Wages in Source Countries: Evidence from Mexico

The Marginal Product of Capital

Whether or not the marginal product of capital (MPK) differs across countries is a question that keeps coming up in discussions of comparative economic development and patterns of capital flows.…

Globalization of Labor Markets and Inequality

In thinking about the impact of the globalization of labor markets on inequal ity, economists n turally turn to the Hecksher-Ohlin model. While in many contexts the effects of trade and migration can…

The Wage Effects of Immigration and Emigration

Immigrants in Rome or Paris are more visible to the public eye than the Italian or French engineers in Silicon Valley, especially when it comes to the debate on the effects of immigration on the…

People Flows in Globalization

The policy debate over globalization in the past decade has largely bypassed the international mobility of labor. Restrict trade and cries of protectionism resound. Suggest linking labor standards to…

Efficiency and distributional implications of global restrictions on labour mobility: calculations and policy implications.

Gains and Scope of Free Migration

In the penultimate year of the Reagan presidency, the United States expelled over a million illegal aliens and was decidedly bullish about it. In the same year, the United States absorbed over two…
...