There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Recent studies of individual attitudes toward immigration emphasize concerns about labor-market competition as a potent source of anti-immigrant sentiment, in particular among less-educated or less-skilled citizens who fear being forced to compete for jobs with low-skilled immigrants willing to work for much lower wages. We examine new data on attitudes toward immigration available from the 2003 European Social Survey. In contrast to predictions based on conventional arguments about labor-market competition, which anticipate that individuals will oppose immigration of workers with similar skills to their own but support immigration of workers with different skill levels, we find that people with higher levels of education and occupational skills are more likely to favor immigration regardless of the skill attributes of the immigrants in question. Across Europe, higher education and higher skills mean more support for all types of immigrants. These relationships are almost identical among individuals in the labor force (that is, those competing for jobs) and those not in the labor force. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, then, the connection between the education or skill levels of individuals and views about immigration appears to have very little, if anything, to do with fears about labor-market competition. This finding is consistent with extensive economic research showing that the income and employment effects of immigration in European economies are actually very small. We find that a large component of the link between education and attitudes toward immigrants is driven by differences among individuals in cultural values and beliefs. More educated respondents are significantly less racist and place greater value on cultural diversity than do their counterparts; they are also more likely to believe that immigration generates benefits for the host economy as a whole.The authors would like to thank Beth Simmons, Shigeo Herano, Mike Tomz, James Alt, Jeffry Frieden, Ron Rogowski, Ken Scheve, Torben Iversen, Andy Baker, and Peter Gourevitch for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

https://web.stanford.edu/~jhain/Paper/IO2007.pdf

Educated Preferences: Explaining Attitudes Toward Immigration in Europe

In our increasingly interconnected and open world, international migration is becoming an important socio-economic phenomenon for many countries. Since the early 1980s, many studies have been undertaken of the impact of immigration on host labour markets. Borjas (2003) noted that the estimated effect of immigration on the wage of native workers varies widely from study to study and sometimes even within the same study. In addition, these effects cluster around zero. Such a small effect is a rather surprising outcome, given that in a closed competitive labour market an increase in labour supply may be expected to exert a downward pressure on wages.

We revisit this issue by applying meta-analytic techniques to a set of eighteen papers, which altogether generated 348 estimates of the percentage change in the wage of a native worker with respect to a one percentage point increase in the ratio of immigrants over native workers. While many studies in our database employ US data, estimates are also obtained from Germany, The Netherlands, France, Norway, Austria, Israel and Australia. Our analysis shows that results vary across countries and are inter alia related to the type of modelling approach. Technical issues such as publication bias and quality of the estimates are addressed as well.

/pdf/a-meta-analytic-assessment-of-the-effect-of-immigration-on-2y3d5u89ow.pdf

A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Douglas S. Massey , Nancy A. Denton

This paper surveys recent empirical studies on the economic impacts of immigration. The survey first examines the magnitude of immigration as an economic phenomenon in various host countries. The second part deals with the assimilation of immigrant workers into host-country labor markets and concomitant effects for natives. The paper then turns to immigration's impact for the public finances of host countries. The final section considers emerging topics in the study of immigration. The survey particularly emphasizes the recent experiences of Northern Europe and Scandinavia and relevant lessons from traditional destination countries like the US. (JEL: H53, J23, J31, J61, J68)

/pdf/economic-impacts-of-immigration-a-survey-18l6lpstww.pdf

Economic impacts of immigration: a survey*

We investigate the likelihood of moving and the direction of moves with respect to the residential location of the parents, using rich administrative data for the Netherlands. We address the question of to what extent events and situations associated with increases in the need for support or contact between parents and adult children influence these moves. The results suggest that adult children take into account the residential location of their parents when their own need for support or contact increases, most notably in case of divorce. The parents' support needs, however, seem to have a much smaller influence on adult children's geographical mobility.

/pdf/distance-to-parents-and-geographical-mobility-5432orkzey.pdf

Distance to parents and geographical mobility

We extend the Altonji and Card (1991) framework for analysing the impact of immigrants on natives' wages from two to three labour types and estimate reduced form wage equations for The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Norway. We find very small effects on natives' wages and no dominant robust patterns of substitution and complementarity. Effects on wages of earlier immigrants are larger but less reliable. Further work should focus on these own effects.

The Effect of Immigration on Wages in Three European Countries

Zorlu A. and Mulder C. H. Initial and subsequent location choices of immigrants to the Netherlands, Regional Studies 41, 1–20. The initial settlement behaviour and the subsequent mobility of immigrants who arrived in the Netherlands in 1999 are examined using rich administrative individual data. The study considers the settlement patterns of immigrants from various countries of origin who entered the country as labour, family or asylum migrants. The evidence suggests distinct settlement trajectories for asylum and other non-Western immigrants. The presence of co-ethnics and members of other ethnic minorities, but also socio-economic neighbourhood characteristics, appear to play an important role in determining location choice. Differences in the settlement and spatial mobility patterns of immigrants with various degrees of distance from the native Dutch in terms of human and financial capital, proficiency in the relevant language(s), and religion confirm the main predictions of spatial assimilation theory...

/pdf/initial-and-subsequent-location-choices-of-immigrants-to-the-4iedlj2xpw.pdf

Initial and subsequent location choices of immigrants to the Netherlands

We analyse the impact of immigrants on natives’ wages from reduced form wage equations for The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Norway. We find very small effects on natives’ wages and no dominant robust patterns of substitution and complementarity. Effects on earlier immigrants’ own wages are larger but less reliable. Further work should focus on these own effects

/pdf/the-effect-of-immigration-on-wages-in-three-european-3ere2qfxe9.pdf

The effect of immigration on wages in three european countries

We use data on refugees admitted to The Netherlands that include registration of education in their homeland by immigration officers. Such data are seldom available. We investigate the quality and reliability of the registrations and then use them to assess effects on refugees’ economic position during the first 5 years after arrival. The most remarkable finding is the absence of returns to higher education.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00148-007-0142-y.pdf

Aslan Zorlu

Papers

Distance to parents and geographical mobility

The Effect of Immigration on Wages in Three European Countries

Initial and subsequent location choices of immigrants to the Netherlands

The effect of immigration on wages in three european countries

How important is homeland education for refugees’ economic position in The Netherlands?