A model is set up where migrants must choose a level of social traits and consumption of ethnic goods. As the consumption level of ethnic goods increases, the migrants become ever more different to the local population and are less assimilated. Less assimilation affects the reaction of the local...

We investigate the relationship between remittances and migrants’ education both theoretically and empirically, using original bilateral remittance data. At a theoretical level we lay out a model of remittances interacting migrants’ human capital with two dimensions of immigration policy:...

This paper investigates the phenomenon of child labor. I consider a society that in principle values education. Parents derive utility from social conformity, and “good” and “bad” equilibria can arise where the majority of children respectively do and do not go to school. In a “bad”...

We consider a small open developing economy, whose population is bifurcated into a majority and a minority group, the latter lacking political influence. Agents are heterogeneous in skills, and decide whether to invest in education when young and whether to migrate in their adulthood. Assuming a...

We present an empirical evaluation of the growth effects of the brain drain for the source countries of migrants. Using recent US data on migration rates by education levels (Carrington and Detragiache, 1998), we find empirical support for the “beneficial brain drain hypothesis” in a sample...

We explore the relation between variability in the rate of return to human capital and investment in education in the context of migration. Specifically, we show that if migration is a possibility, such variability in the rate of return to human capital can induce residents of developing...

The basic neoclassical model of migration suggests that migration is induced by real income differentials across locations and will, ceteris paribus, serve to reduce those differentials. And yet the evidence on growing spatial inequality is clear, despite increased migration from poorer to...

This paper links the two fields of “development traps” and “brain drain”. We construct a model which integrates endogenous international migration into a simple growth model. As a result the dynamics of the economy can feature some underdevelopment traps: an economy starting with a low...

Men's additional income from their guest-worker employment generates a pure income effect, which increases fertility. The timing of women's higher-wage employment relative to child bearing is crucial for its effect on fertility. If women work abroad during the same time period when they can bear...

A highly skilled immigration can be growth enhancing if the positive contribution of the imported brains to the host economy’s human capital stock outweighs the immigration-induced adverse effect on educational incentives for natives, or growth depleting if the latter effect dominates.