Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T10:06:27.380Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DISSECTING NETWORK EXTERNALITIES IN INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2015

Michel Beine ,
Frédéric Docquier  and
Çağlar Özden
Michel Beine
Affiliation:
University of Luxembourg(Luxembourg) and CES-Ifo (Germany)
Frédéric Docquier
Affiliation:
FNRS and IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium)
Çağlar Özden
Affiliation:
World Bank, Development Research Group (United States)
Get access

Abstract:

Migrant networks play an important role in explaining the size and structure of migration flows. They affect the private costs and benefits of migration (assimilation channel) and lower legal entry barriers through family reunification programs (policy channel). This paper presents a micro-founded identification strategy allowing to disentangle the relative importance of these two channels. Our empirical analysis exploits US immigration data by metropolitan area and country of origin. We first find that the elasticity of migration flows to network size is around one. More interestingly, we show that the policy channel accounted at most for a quarter of this elasticity in the 1990s, and the magnitudes of the total network effect and the policy channel are greater for low-skilled migrants. Our results are strongly robust to sample selection, identification assumptions, and treatment for unobserved bilateral heterogeneity. Furthermore, the policy channel was stronger in the 1990s than in the 1980s, possibly reflecting the changes in the US family reunification policies. We conclude that the government capacity to curb the migration multiplier exists, but is limited.

Keywords

migrationnetwork/diaspora externalitiesimmigration policyF22O15
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 81 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 379 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bauer, Thomas, Epstein, Gil and Gang, Ira N. (2007) Herd effects or migration networks? The location choice of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. Research in Labor Economics 26, See http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/book/10.1016/S0147-9121%282007%2926, 199–229.Google Scholar
Beine, Michel, Docquier, Frédéric and Ozden, Caglar (2011) Diasporas. Journal of Development Economics 95 (1), 30–41.Google Scholar
Beine, Michel, Bertoli, Simone and Moraga, Jesus Ferná ndez-Huertas (2015) A practitioners’ guide to gravity models of international migration. World Economy, forthcoming. DOI: 10.111/twec.12265.Google Scholar
Bertoli, Simone and Moraga, Jesus Fernández-Huertas (2013) Multilateral resistance to migration. Journal of Development Economics 102, See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03043878/102, 79–100.Google Scholar
Bertoli, Simone and Moraga, Jesus Fernández-Huertas (2015) The size of the cliff at the border. Regional Science and Urban Economics 51, See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01660462/51, 1–6.Google Scholar
Bin, Yu (2007) Chain Migration Explained: The Power of the Immigration Multiplier. El Paso, U.S: LBF Scholar Publishing.Google Scholar
Boyd, Monica (1989) Family and personal networks in international migration: Recent developments and new agendas. International Migration Review 23 (3), 638–670.Google Scholar
Carrington, William J., Detragiache, Enrica and Vishwanath, Tara (1996) Migration with endogenous moving costs. American Economic Review 86 (4), 909–30.Google Scholar
Comola, Margherita and Mendola, Mariapia (2015) The formation of migrant networks. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 117 (2), 592–618.Google Scholar
Coulombe, Serge and Tremblay, Jean-Francois (2009) Migration and skill disparities across the Canadian provinces. Regional Studies 43 (1), 5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric, Lowell, B. L. Lindsay and Marfouk, Abdeslam (2009) A gendered assessment of highly skilled emigration. Population and Development Review 35 (2), 297–321.Google Scholar
Durand, Jorge, Massey, Douglas S. and Charvet, Fernando (2000) The changing geography of Mexican immigration to the United States: 1910–1996. Social Science Quarterly 81 (1), 1–15.Google Scholar
Epstein, Gil (2008) Herd and network effects in migration decision-making. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (4), 567–583.Google Scholar
Fafchamps, Marcel and Gubert, Flore (2007) The formation of risk-sharing networks. Journal of Development Economics 83 (2), 326–350.Google Scholar
Fafchamps, Marcel, Goyal, Sanjeev and van der Leij, Marco J. (2010) Matching and network effects. Journal of the European Economic Association 8 (1), 203–231.Google Scholar
Funkhouser, Edward (2000) Changes in the geographic concentration and location of residence of immigrants. International Migration Review 34 (2), 489–510.Google Scholar
Genicot, Garance and Ray, Debraj (2003) Endogenous group formation in risk-sharing arrangements. Review of Economic Studies 70 (1), 87–113.Google Scholar
Giuletti, Corrado, Wahba, Jacki and Zenou, Yves (2014) Strong versus weak ties in migration. IZA Discussion Paper no. 8089. IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor), Bonn (Germany).Google Scholar
Grogger, Jeffrey and Hanson, Gordon H. (2011) Income maximisation and the selection and sorting of international migrants. Journal of Development Economics 95 (1), 42–57.Google Scholar
Hatton, Timothy and Williamson, Jeffrey G. (2005) What fundamentals drive world migration? In Borjas, G. J. and Crisp, J.f (eds.), Poverty, International Migration and Asylum, pp. 15–38. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.Google Scholar
Jackson, Matthew O. and Rogers, Brian W. (2007) Meeting strangers and friends of friends: How random are social networks? American Economic Review 97 (3), 890–915.Google Scholar
Jaeger, David A., (2007) Green cards and the location choice of immigrants in the United States, 1971–2000. Research in Labor Economics 27, 131–183.Google Scholar
Jasso, Guillermina and Rosenzweig, Mark R. (1986) Family reunion and the immigration multiplier: U.S. immigration law, origin-country conditions, and the reproduction of immigrants. Demography 23 (3), 291–311.Google Scholar
Jasso, Guillermina and Rosenzweig, Mark R. (1989) Sponsors, sponsorship rates and the immigration multiplier. International Migration Review 23 (4), 856–888.Google Scholar
Manski, Charles F., (1993) Identification of endogeneous social effects: the relection problem. Review of Economic Studies 60 (3), 531–42.Google Scholar
Massey, D., Alarcon, R., Durand, J. and Gonzalez, H. (1987) Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S., Arango, Joaquim, Hugo, Graeme, Kouaouci, Ali, Pellegrino, Adela and Taylor, J. Edward (1993) Theories of international migration: Review and appraisal. Population and Development Review 19 (3), 431–466.Google Scholar
Massey, D. and Espinosa, K. (1997), What’s driving Mexico U.S. migration? A theoretical, empirical, and policy analysis. American Journal of Sociology 102 (4), 939–99.Google Scholar
Mattoo, Aaditya, Neagu, Ileana Cristina and Ozden, Caglar (2008) Brain waste? Educated immigrants in the U.S. labor market. Journal of Development Economics 87 (2), 255–269.Google Scholar
Mayer, Adalbert and Puller, Steven L. (2008) The old boy (and girl) network: Social network formation on university campuses. Journal of Public Economics 92 (1–2), 329–347.Google Scholar
McConnell, Eileen Diaz (2008) The U.S. destinations of contemporary Mexican immigrants. International Migration Review 42 (4), 767–802.Google Scholar
McFadden, Daniel L. (1984) Econometric analysis of qualitative response models. In Griliches, Z. and Intriligator, M. (eds.), Handbook of Econometrics, vol. 2, p. 1395–1457, Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland.Google Scholar
McKenzie, David and Rapoport, Hillel (2010) Self-selection patterns in Mexico-US migration: the role of migration networks. Review of Economics and Statistics 92 (4), 811–821.Google Scholar
Munshi, Kaivan (2003) Networks in the modern economy: Mexican migrants in the U.S. labor market. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118 (2), 549–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office of Immigration Statistics (2004) 2003 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. U.S. Department of Homeland Security: Pittsburgh PA, United States.Google Scholar
Ortega, Fransesc and Peri, Giovanni (2013) The role of income and immigration policies in attracting international migrants. Migration Studies 1 (1), 47–74.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Peder J., Pytlikova, Mariola and Smith, Nina (2008) Selection or network effects? Migration flows into 27 OECD countries, 1990–2000. European Economic Review 52 (7), 1160–1186.Google Scholar
Pesaran, M. Hashem (2006) Estimation and Inference in Large Heterogeneous Panels with a Multifactor Error Structure. Econometrica 74 (4), 967–1012.Google Scholar
Santos Silva, Joao M. C. and Tenreyro, Silvana (2006) The log of gravity. Review of Economics and Statistics 88 (4), 641–658.Google Scholar
Santos Silva, Joao M. C. and Tenreyro, Silvana (2010) On the existence of the maximum likelihood estimates for poisson regression. Economic Letters 107 (2), 310–312.Google Scholar
Tenreyro, Silvana (2007) On the trade impact of nominal exchange rate volatility. Journal of Development Economics 82 (2), 485–508.Google Scholar
Winters, Paul, de Janvry, Alain and Sadoulet, Elisabeth (2001) Family and community networks in Mexico-U.S. migration. Journal of Human Resources 36 (1), 159–184.Google Scholar