Politicians, the media, and the public express concern that immigrants depress wages by competing with native workers, but 30 years of empirical research provide little supporting evidence to this claim. Most studies for industrialized countries have found no effect on wages, on average, and...

A theory is developed of labor migration that is prompted by a desire to avoid "social humiliation". In a general equilibrium framework it is shown that as long as migration can reduce humiliation sufficiently, migration will occur even between two identical economies. Migration increases the...

This research extends simple two-sector models in order to inquire the impact of the extent of coverage or enforcement of minimum wage legislation in one of the sectors on the equilibrium outcome. Two versions of institutional wage avoidance are presented. They may be seen as representing...

This research extends simple two-sector models in order to inquire the impact of the extent of coverage or enforcement of minimum wage legislation in one of the sectors on the equilibrium outcome. Two versions of institutional wage avoidance are presented. They may be seen as representing...

Previous literature shows that internal migration rates are strongly procyclical. This would seem to imply that geographic relocation does not help mitigate negative local economic shocks during recessions. This paper shows that this is not the case. I document that net in-migration rates...

Recent European Legislation on immigration has revealed a particular paradox on migration policies. On the one hand, the trend of recent legislation points to the increasing closure of frontiers (OECD 1999, 2001,2004), also by using immigration quotas. On the other hand, there is an increase of...

A framework that yields different possible patterns of migration as optimal solutions to a simple utility maximization problem is presented and explored. It is shown that seasonal migration arises as an optimal endogenous response to a comparison of costs (of living and of separation) and...

In this paper we present and confront the main comparative static results - effects of labor supply, demand and institutional wage movements - of the (a) basic two-sector model in six different scenarios: free market; partial (one-sector) coverage with perfect intersector mobility; partial...

Remittances in Moldova reach 36% of GDP, hence they constitute an essential part of the Moldovan economy. The most visible characteristic of remittances is their unequal distribution. The analysis applying the standard Lorenz Curve proves that 75% receiving households gets only 25% of total...

In the recent past, in Italy, immigration has been at the centre of academic and policy debates. Nonetheless, the still growing literature has focused mainly on the experience of old settlement countries and has mainly looked at single aspects of the phenomenon. In order to guide effective...