Welfare Magnet Hypothesis, Fiscal Burden and Immigration Skill Selectivity / Assaf Razin, Jackline Wahba.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Razin, Assaf.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Wahba, Jackline.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17515.

NBER working paper series no. w17515

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

This paper revisits the magnet hypothesis and investigates the impact of the welfare generosity on the difference between skilled and unskilled migration rates. The main purpose of the paper is to assess the role of mobility restriction on shaping the effect of the welfare state genrosity. In a free migration regime, the impact is expected to be negative on the skill composition of migrants while in a restricted mobility regime, the impact will be the opposite, as voters will prefer selective migration policies, favoring skilled migrants who tend to be net contributors to the fiscal system. We utilize the free labor movement within EUR (the EU, Norway and Switzerland) and the restricted movement from outside of the EUR to compare the free migration.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2011.