Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

International Migration

  • Chapter
Palgrave Handbook of International Trade

  • 1218 Accesses

Abstract

Like migration itself, economic research on migration seems to come in waves. The large scale of current global migration, and the sometimes quite ugly politics associated with immigration, have produced just such a wave of research. Theoretical and empirical research on migration, in particular, occurs across the social sciences, with particularly large bodies in economics, demography/sociology and political science. Within economics, the study of migration falls between trade and labour economics, with sizable bodies of both theoretical and econometric work. To limit the field of coverage and maintain consistency with the other chapters in the volume, we will focus on a set of questions framed by standard trade theoretic models and the empirical research that bears on those questions. As with the bulk of the recent literature, we pay particular attention to how migration impacts labour market outcomes. The popular perception that these outcomes may be adverse for native workers constitutes an important ingredient in the political economy of immigration.

This chapter is dramatically shorter than the working paper version, which contains substantially more analytical detail and references. The working paper version can be downloaded from the Bond University Globalisation and Development Centre’s web page. The authors are grateful to Rod Falvey and two anonymous referees for detailed comments and advice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Altonji, Joseph, and David Card (1991) ‘The effects of immigration on the labor market outcomes of less-skilled natives’, in J.M. Abowd and R.B. Freeman (eds.), Immigration, Trade and Labor Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press/NBER.

    Google Scholar 

  • Angrist, Joshua D., and Adriana D. Kugler (2003) ‘Protective or counter-productive? Labour market institutions and the effect of immigration on EU natives’, Economic Journal 113(488): F302–F31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernard, Andrew B., and J. Bradford Jensen (2000) ‘Understanding increasing and decreasing wage inequality’, in R.C. Feenstra (ed.), Impact of International Trade Wages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 227–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernard, Andrew B., Stephen J. Redding and Peter K. Schott (2009) ‘Testing for factor price equality in the presence of unobserved factor quality differences’, NBER Working Paper No. 8068.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernard, Andrew B., Stephen J. Redding, Peter K. Schott and Helen Simpson (2008) ‘Relative wage variation and industry location in the United Kingdom’, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 70(4): 431–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernstein, Jeffrey R., and David E. Weinstein (2002) ‘Do endowments predict the location of production? Evidence from national and international data’, Journal of International Economics 56(1): 55–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhagwati, Jagdish N., Arvind Panagariya and T.N. Srinivasan (1998) Lectures on International Trade, 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanchard, Olivier J., and Lawrence F. Katz (1992) ‘Regional evolutions’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (1): 1–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borjas, George J. (1987) ‘Self-selection and the earnings of immigrants’, American Economic Review 77(4): 531–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (1990) Friends or Strangers: The Impact of Immigrants on the U.S. Economy. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (2003) ‘The labor demand curve is downward sloping: reexamining the impact of immigration on the labor market’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(4): 1335–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • —. (2006) ‘Native internal migration and the labor market impact of immigration’, Journal of Human Resources 41(2): 221–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borjas, George J., Richard B. Freeman and Lawrence F. Katz (1992) ‘On the labor market effects of immigration and trade’, in G. J. Borjas and R. B. Freeman (eds.), Immigration and the Work Force, 213–44. Chicago: University of Chicago Press/NBER.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • —. (1997) ‘How much do immigration and trade affect labor market outcomes?’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (1): 1–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Card, David (1990) ‘The impact of the mariel boatlift on the Miami labor-market’, Industrial & Labor Relations Review 43(2): 245–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • —. (2001) ‘Immigrant inflows, native outflows, and the local labor market impacts of higher immigration’, Journal of Labor Economics 19(1): 22–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • —. (2009) ‘Immigration and inequality’, American Economic Review 99(2): 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Card, David, Christian Dustmann and Ian Preston (2009) ‘Immigration, wages, and compositional amenities’, NBER Working Paper No. 15521.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cortes, Patricia (2008) ‘The effect of low-skilled immigration on U.S. prices: evidence from CPI data’, Journal of Political Economy 116(3): 381–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Amuri, Francesco, Gianmarco, I.P. Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri (2010) ‘The labor market impact of immigration in Western Germany in the 1990s’, European Economic Review, 54(4): 550–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Decressin, Jörg, and Antonio Fatás (1995) ‘Regional labor market dynamics in Europe’, European Economic Review 39(9): 1627–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eger, Maureen A. (2010) ‘Even in Sweden: the effect of immigration on support for welfare state spending’, European Sociological Review 26(2): 203–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ethier, Wilfred J. (1996) ‘Theories about trade liberalisation and migration: substitutes or complements?’, in P.J. Lloyd and L. Williams (eds.), International Trade and Migration in the Apec Region. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 50–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Facchini, Giovanni, and Anna Maria Mayda (2008) ‘From individual attitudes towards migrants to migration policy outcomes: theory and evidence’, Economic Policy (56): 65–713.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, Richard B. (1993) ‘Immigration from poor to wealthy countries: experience of the United States’, European Economic Review 37(2–3): 443–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • —. (1998) ‘Will globalization dominate U.S. labor market outcomes?’, in S.M. Collins (ed.), Imports, Exports and the American Worker. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 101–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gandal, Neil, Gordon H. Hanson and Matthew J. Slaughter (2004) ‘Technology, trade, and adjustment to immigration in Israel’, European Economic Review 48(2): 403–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaston, Noel, and Douglas Nelson (2000) ‘Immigration and labour market outcomes in the United States: a political-economy puzzle’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 16(3): 104–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaston, Noel, and Douglas R. Nelson (2010) ‘International migration’, Bond University Globalisation and Development Centre Working Paper No. 39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glitz, Albrecht (2006) ‘The labour market impact of immigration: quasi-experimental evidence’, CReAM Discussion Paper No. 0612.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, David M. (1994) ‘Immigrant links to the home country: empirical implications for United States bilateral trade flows’, Review of Economics and Statistics 76(2): 302–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Granovetter, Mark (1973) ‘Strength of weak ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • —. (1983) ‘The strength of weak ties revisited’, in R. Collins (ed.), Sociological Theory — 1983, 201–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (2005) ‘The impact of social structure on economic outcomes’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(1): 33–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenaway, David, and Douglas R. Nelson (2010) ‘The politics of (anti-) globalization: what do we learn from simple models?’, in N. Gaston and A. Khalid (eds.), Globalization and Economic Integration: Winners and Losers in the Asia-Pacific. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 69–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greif, Avner (1993) ‘Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: the Maghribi traders coalition’, American Economic Review 83(3): 525–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grogger, Jeffrey, and Gordon H. Hanson (2008) ‘Income maximization and the selection and sorting of international migrants’, NBER Working Paper No. 13821.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hainmueller, Jens, and Michael J. Hiscox (2010) ‘Attitudes toward highly skilled and low skilled immigration: evidence from a survey experiment’, American Political Science Review 104(1): 61–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, Gordon H. (2009) ‘The economic consequences of international migration’, Annual Review of Economics 1: 179–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, Gordon H., Kenneth Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter (2007) ‘Public finance and individual preferences over globalization strategies’, Economics and Politics 19(1): 1–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, Gordon H., and Matthew J. Slaughter (2002) ‘Labor market adjustment in open economies: evidence from US states’, Journal of International Economics 57(1): 3–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, Gordon H., and Antonio Spilimbergo (2001) ‘Political economy, sectoral shocks, and border enforcement’, Canadian Journal of Economics 34(3): 612–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrigan, James (1997) ‘Technology, factor supplies, and international specialization: estimating the neoclassical model’, American Economic Review 87(4): 475–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatton, Timothy J., and Jeffrey G. Williamson (2006) ‘International migration in the long-run: positive selection, negative selection and policy’, in F. Foders and R.J. Langhammer, (eds.) Labour Mobility and the World Economy Kiel: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helliwell, John F. (1998) How Much Do National Borders Matter? Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herander, Mark G., and Luz A. Saavedra (2005) ‘Exports and the structure of immigrant-based networks: the role of geographic proximity’, Review of Economics and Statistics 87(2): 323–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hijzen, Alexander, and Peter W. Wright (2010) ‘Migration, trade and wages’, Journal of Population Economics, 23(4), 1189–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horiba, Yutaka, and Rickey C. Kirkpatrick (1983) ‘United States North-South labor migration and trade’, Journal of Regional Science 23(1): 93–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Ronald W. (1967) ‘International capital movements and theory of tariffs and trade’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 81(1): 1–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, Lawrence F., and Kevin M. Murphy (1992) ‘Changes in relative wages, 1963–1987: supply and demand factors’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 107(1): 35–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kemp, Murray C. (1966) ‘Gain from international trade and investment: a neo-Heckscher-Ohlin approach’, American Economic Review 56(4): 788–809.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohli, Ulrich (1991) Technology, Duality, and Foreign Trade: The Gnp Function Approach to Modeling Imports and Exports. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (1999) ‘Trade and migration: a production theory approach’, in R. Faini, J. de Melo and K.F. Zimmermann (eds.), Migration: The Controversies and the Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (2002) ‘Migration and foreign trade: further results’, Journal of Population Economics 15(2): 381–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kritz, Mary M., and Douglas T. Gurak (2001) ‘The impact of immigration on the internal migration of natives and immigrants’, Demography 38(1): 133–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lalonde, Robert J., and Robert H. Topel (1991) ‘Labor market adjustments to increased migration’, in J.M. Abowd and R.B. Freeman (eds.), Immigration, Trade and the Labor Market, 167–99. Chicago: University of Chicago Press/NBER.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lau, Lawrence (1986) ‘Functional forms in econometric model building’, in Z. Griliches and M. Intriligator (eds.), Handbook of Econometrics, 1515–66. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leamer, Edward E. (1995) The Heckscher-Ohlin Model in Theory and Practice. Princeton: International Finance Section, Department of Economics, Princeton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowell, B. Lindsay (2007) ‘Trends in international migration flows and stocks, 1975–2005’, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper No. 58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markusen, James R., and Lars E.O. Svensson (1985) ‘Trade in goods and factors with international differences in technology’, International Economic Review 26(1): 175–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massey, Douglas S., Rafael Alarcón, Jorge Durand and Humberto Gonzalez (1987) Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCallum, John (1995) ‘National borders matter: Canada-US regional trade patterns’, American Economic Review 85(3): 615–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mundell, Robert A. (1957) ‘International trade and factor mobility’, American Economic Review 47(3): 321–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Opp, Marcus M., Hugo F. Sonnenschein and Christis G. Tombazos (2009) ‘Rybczynski’s Theorem in the Heckscher-Ohlin world: anything goes’, Journal of International Economics 79(1): 137–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P., and Giovanni Peri (2011) ‘Rethinking the effects of immigration on wages’, Journal of the European Economic Association, forthcoming.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (2008) ‘Immigration and national wages: clarifying the theory and the empirics’, NBER Working Paper No. 14188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Overman, Henry G., and Diego Puga (2002) ‘Unemployment clusters across Europe’s regions and countries’, Economic Policy (34): 115–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Portes, Richard, and Helene Rey (2005) ‘The determinants of cross-border equity flows’, Journal of International Economics 65(2): 269–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rauch, James E. (1999) ‘Networks versus markets in international trade’, Journal of International Economics 48(1): 7–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rauch, James E., and Alessandra Casella (2003) ‘Overcoming informational barriers to international resource allocation: prices and ties’, Economic Journal 113(484): 21–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Razin, Assaf, Efraim Sadka and Phillip Swagel (2002) ‘Tax burden and migration: a political economy theory and evidence’, Journal of Public Economics 85(2): 167–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, A.D. (1951) ‘Some thoughts on the distribution of earnings’, Oxford Economic Papers 3(2): 135–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rybczynski, T.M. (1955) ‘Factor endowments and relative commodity prices’, Economica 22: 336–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samuelson, Paul A. (1949) ‘International factor price equalization once again’, Economic Journal 59(234): 181–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trefler, Daniel (1995) ‘The case of the missing trade and other mysteries’, American Economic Review 85(5): 1029–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, Oliver E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications: A Study in the Economics of Internal Organization. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (1985) The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • —. (1996) The Mechanisms of Governance. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, Kar-yiu (1986) ‘Are international trade and factor mobility substitutes’, Journal of International Economics 21(1–2): 25–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • —. (1988) ‘International factor mobility and the volume of trade: an empirical study’, in R.C. Feenstra (ed.), Empirical Methods for International Trade. Cambridge: MIT Press, 231–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmermann, Klaus F. (1995) ‘Tackling the European Migration Problem’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 9(2): 45–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Globalisation and Development Centre and School of Business, Bond University, Australia

    Noel Gaston

  2. Murphy Institute of Political Economy, Tulane University, USA

    Doug Nelson

  3. Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy, School of Economics, University of Nottingham, UK

    Doug Nelson

Authors
  1. Noel Gaston
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Doug Nelson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. American University, USA

    Daniel Bernhofen

  2. Bond University, Australia

    Rod Falvey

  3. University of Nottingham, UK

    David Greenaway

  4. University of Tübingen, Germany

    Udo Kreickemeier

Copyright information

© 2013 Noel Gaston and Doug Nelson

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Gaston, N., Nelson, D. (2013). International Migration. In: Bernhofen, D., Falvey, R., Greenaway, D., Kreickemeier, U. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of International Trade. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-30531-1_21

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation