Contrary to the welfare magnet hypothesis, empirical evidence suggests that immigration decisions are not made on the basis of the relative generosity of the receiving nation's social benefits. Even when immigrants are found to use welfare more intensively than natives, the gap is mostly...

This chapter reviews and discusses major theories and empirical studies about the welfare magnet hypothesis, i.e. whether immigrants are more likely to move to countries with generous welfare systems. Although economic theory predicts that welfare generosity affects the number, composition and...

This paper investigates regional or international transfers as a means to prevent immigration into unemployment. We analyze a two-country model with free migration in which the rich country is characterized by minimum wage unemployment. Matching grants for investment in infrastructure are...

This paper builds a multi-sector, three country (centre and two peripheries), New Economic Geography model, where industrial sectors differ in the degree of scale economies and skill-intensity. The model incorporates, for the first time in this class of models, payments to the unemployed in each...

We study the effects of high skilled immigration on employment and net income in the receiving economy where the market for low skilled labour is distorted by union wage setting and a redistributive unemployment benefit scheme. Based on the empirical fact that high and low skilled workers are...

We study the effects of high skilled immigration on employment and net income in the receiving economy where the market for low skilled labour is distorted by union wage setting and a redistributive unemployment benefit scheme. Based on the empirical fact that high and low skilled workers are...

This chapter reviews and discusses major theories and empirical studies about the welfare magnet hypothesis, i.e. whether immigrants are more likely to move to countries with generous welfare systems. Although economic theory predicts that welfare generosity affects the number, composition and...

We study the problem of unemployment benefit provision when the family is also a provider of social insurance. As a benchmark, a simple model is presented where risk-sharing motives govern intra-family transfers and more generous unemployment benefits, provided by the State, crowd out family...