Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:01:35.017Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

WEALTH CONSTRAINTS, MIGRANT SELECTION, AND INEQUALITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2017

Joaquín Naval
Joaquín Naval*
Affiliation:
Departament d'Economia, Universitat de Girona
*
Address correspondence to: Joaquín Naval Navarro, Departament d'Economia, Facultat de Ciències Econòmiques i Empresarials, Universitat de Girona, Carrer de la Universitat de Girona, 10, Campus Montilivi, 17003 Girona, Spain; e-mail: joaquin.naval@udg.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper builds a theoretical framework for studying migration and education in developing countries. Migration and education decisions are affected by migrants' wealth constraints. Technology and migration costs determine the pattern of migration through level of education, income, and wealth inequality. The model predicts that in the first stages of technological development, migration rates increase, as does economic inequality over time, for high migration costs. At more advanced stages of development, migration rates and wealth inequality decline. I show that these predictions are in line with the data.

Keywords

InequalityMigrationRemittancesEducation
Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 535 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank the associate editor and one anonymous referee, my supervisor Jordi Caballé, and Jesús Fernández-Huertas for their useful comments and guidance. I also wish to thank Frédéric Docquier, David de la Croix, Pau Pujolàs, Joel López Real, and Nuria Rodríguez for their valuable suggestions. This paper has benefited from discussions at seminars in the ENTER Jamboree at Tilburg University, Holland, the Doctoral Workshop in Economics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, the Summer School in Public Economics: Immigration and Public Policy in the Institut d'Economia de Barcelona, Spain, and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics Summer Forum, Spain. All errors are my own.

References

REFERENCES

Adams, Richard H. (1991) The economic uses and impact of international remittances in rural Egypt. Economic Development and Cultural Change 39 (4), 695–722.10.1086/451904Google Scholar
Anyanwu, John C. and Erhijakpor, Andrew E. O. (2010) Do international remittances affect poverty in Africa? African Development Review 22 (1), 51–91.10.1111/j.1467-8268.2009.00228.xGoogle Scholar
Barham, Bradford and Boucher, Stephen (1998) Migration, remittances and inequality: Estimating the net effects of migration on income distribution. Journal of Development Economics 55, 307–331.10.1016/S0304-3878(98)90038-4Google Scholar
Barro, Robert J. (2000) Inequality and growth in a panel of countries. Journal of Economic Growth 5, 5–32.10.1023/A:1009850119329Google Scholar
Beine, Michel, Docquier, Frédéric, and Rapoport, Hillel (2008) Brain drain and human capital formation in developing countries: Winners and losers. Economic Journal 118 (528), 631–652.10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02135.xGoogle Scholar
Bollard, Albert, McKenzie, David, Morten, Melanie, and Rapoport, Hillel (2011) Remittances and the brain drain revisited: The microdata show that more educated migrants remit more. World Bank Economic Review 25 (1), 132–156.10.1093/wber/lhr013Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. (1987) Self-selection and the earnings of immigrants. American Economic Review 77 (4), 531–553.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. (2003) The labor demand curve is downward sloping: Reexamining the impact of immigration on the labor market. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118 (4), 1335–74.10.1162/003355303322552810Google Scholar
Ceroni, C. Berti (2001) Poverty traps and human capital accumulation. Economica 68, 203–19.10.1111/1468-0335.00242Google Scholar
Clemens, Michael (2014) Does development reduce migration? In Lucas, Robert E. B. (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, pp. 152–185. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric, Lowell, B. Lindsay, and Marfouk, Abdeslam (2009) A gendered assessment of highly skilled emigration. Population and Development Review 35 (2), 297–321.10.1111/j.1728-4457.2009.00277.xGoogle Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric and Rapoport, Hillel (2012) Globalization, brain drain, and development. Journal of Economic Literature 50 (3), 681–730.10.1257/jel.50.3.681Google Scholar
Docquier, Frédéric, Rapoport, Hillel, and Shen, I-Ling (2010) Remittances and inequality: A dynamic migration model. Journal of Economic Inequality 8 (2), 197–220.Google Scholar
Feenstra, Robert C., Inklaar, Robert, and Timmer, Marcel P. (2015) The next generation of the Penn world table. American Economic Review 105 (10), 3150–3182.10.1257/aer.20130954Google Scholar
Fernández-Huertas, Jesús (2013) Understanding different migrant selection patterns in rural and urban Mexico. Journal of Development Economics 103 (C), 182–201.10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.02.005Google Scholar
Friedberg, Rachel M. and Hunt, Jennifer (1995) The impact of immigrants on host country wages, employment and growth. Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (2), 23–44.10.1257/jep.9.2.23Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Moav, Omer (2004) From physical to human capital accumulation: Inequality and the process of development. Review of Economic Studies 71 (4), 1001–1026.10.1111/0034-6527.00312Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Moav, Omer (2006) Das human kapital: A theory of the demise of the class structure. Review of Economic Studies 73 (1), 85–117.10.1111/j.1467-937X.2006.00370.xGoogle Scholar
Galor, Oded, Moav, Omer, and Vollrath, Dietrich (2009) Inequality in land ownership, the emergence of human capital promoting institutions, and the great divergence. Review of Economic Studies 76 (1), 143–179.10.1111/j.1467-937X.2008.00506.xGoogle Scholar
Galor, Oded and Tsiddon, Daniel (1997) The distribution of human capital and economic growth. Journal of Economic Growth 2 (1), 93–124.10.1023/A:1009785714248Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Zeira, Joseph (1993) Income distribution and macroeconomics. Review of Economic Studies 60, 35–52.10.2307/2297811Google Scholar
Grogger, Jeffrey and Hanson, Gordon H. (2011) Income maximization and the selection and sorting of international migrants. Journal of Development Economics 95 (1), 42–57.10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.06.003Google Scholar
Hanson, Gordon H. (2010) International migration and development. In Kanbur, Ravi and Spence, Michael (eds.), Equity and Growth in a Globalizing World, pp. 229–262. Washington, DC: Commission on Growth and Development, The World Bank.Google Scholar
Kuznets, Simon (1955) Economic growth and income inequality. American Economic Review 45 (1), 1–28.Google Scholar
Lipton, Michael (1980) Migration from the rural areas of poor countries: The impact on rural productivity and income distribution. World Development 8, 1–24.10.1016/0305-750X(80)90047-9Google Scholar
Lucas, Robert E. B. and Stark, Oded (1985) Motivations to remit: Evidence from Botswana. Journal of Political Economy 93, 901–918.Google Scholar
Mayda, Anna M. (2010) International migration: A panel data analysis of the determinants of bilateral flows. Journal of Population Economics 23 (4), 1249–1274.10.1007/s00148-009-0251-xGoogle Scholar
Mckenzie, David and Rapoport, Hillel (2007) Network effects and the dynamics of migration and inequality: Theory and evidence from Mexico. Journal of Development Economics 84, 1–24.10.1016/j.jdeveco.2006.11.003Google Scholar
Mountford, Andrew and Rapoport, Hillel (2011) The brain drain and the world distribution of income. Journal of Development Economics 95, 4–17.10.1016/j.jdeveco.2009.11.005Google Scholar
Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P. and Peri, Giovanni (2012) Rethinking the effects of immigration on wages. Journal of the European Economic Association 10 (1), 152–197.10.1111/j.1542-4774.2011.01052.xGoogle Scholar
Quah, Danny (2003) One third of the world's growth and inequality. In Eicher, Theo and Turnovsky, Stephen J. (eds.), Inequality and Growth: Theory and Policy Implications, pp. 27–58. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ratha, Dilip, De, Supriyo, Dervisevic, Ervin, Plaza, Sonia, Schuettler, Kirsten, Shaw, William, Wyss, Hanspeter, Yi, Soonhwa, and Yousefi, Seyed Reza (2015) Migration and Development Brief No. 24. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Solt, Frederick (2009) The standardized world income inequality database. Social Science Quarterly 90 (2), 231–242.10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00614.xGoogle Scholar
Solt, Frederick (2014) The Standardized World Income Inequality Database. Harvard Dataverse, V15. SWIID version 5.0, October 2014.Google Scholar
Stark, Oded (2006) Inequality and migration: A behavioral link. Economics Letters 91, 146–152.10.1016/j.econlet.2005.09.015Google Scholar
Stark, Oded and Taylor, J. Edward (1991) Migration incentives, migration types: The role of relative deprivation. Economic Journal 101, 1163–1178.10.2307/2234433Google Scholar
Stark, Oded, Taylor, J. Edward, and Yitzaki, Shlomo (1986) Remittances and inequality. Economic Journal 96 (383), 722–740.10.2307/2232987Google Scholar
United Nations (2016) International Migration Report 2015: Highlights. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, United Nations.Google Scholar
Vidal, Jean-Pierre (1998) The effect of emigration on human capital formation. Journal of Population Economics 11 (4), 1432–1475.10.1007/s001480050086Google Scholar