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Ann Reg Sci (2013) 51:1–5
DOI 10.1007/s00168-012-0530-4
SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORIAL
Special issue on international migration: editorial
introduction
Masood Gheasi ·Peter Nijkamp ·Jacques Poot
Published online: 2 September 2012
© Springer-Verlag 2012
Migration has long been a core topic in regional science, as early reviews such as
Greenwood (1985) demonstrate. Most attention to date has been devoted to causes
and consequences of interregional migration, not only because of the availability of
data but also because of the internal distribution of population being a major con-
cern of policymakers. Since the 1980s, however, attention has shifted to international
migration due to the tremendous growth in the number of foreign-born migrants in
most developed countries. For quite some time, this trend was not picked up in the
regional science literature (but see, e.g., Poot 1996 for an early contribution). How-
ever, in recent years, a growing number of papers at regional science meetings have
been devoted to patterns of international migration and their impacts. The fruits of this
endeavor are now emerging in the literature—as recent articles in the Annals indicate
(Ekberg et al. 2010;Clemente et al. 2011;Van der Vlist et al. 2011;Sahin et al. 2011).
Many questions remain regarding the determinants of patterns of international
migration, the consequences for sending and host countries, and the integration of
immigrants in host societies. Consequently, some special sessions were devoted specif-
ically to these issues at the 50th congress of the European Regional Science Association
in Jönköping, Sweden during August 2010. Following a rigorous refereeing process,
M. Gheasi (B
)·P. Nijkamp
Department of Spatial Economics, VU University, De Boelelaan 1105,
1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: m.a.g.gheasi@vu.nl
P. Nijkamp
e-mail: p.nijkamp@vu.nl
J. Poot
National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis,
University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand
e-mail: jpoot@waikato.ac.nz
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2M. Gheasi et al.
five of the papers presented at that conference constitute this (mini) special issue. The
papers each offer quite different, but complementing, perspectives on international
migration. Before outlining and integrating the contributions of these papers in this
editorial introduction, we first offer some general remarks that set the scene.
Throughout human history, migration has been a courageous expression of the
individual’s will to overcome adversity and to live a better life. Push factors (such
as poverty, a lack of employment opportunities, conflict, and natural disasters) and
pull factors (such as higher employment, more wealth, social cohesion, good climate,
political stability, and a low risk of natural hazards) made millions of people to move
from their country of origin to other countries and even to different continents. The
global number of international migrants is estimated to have increased from 80million
in 1970 to 214million in 2010 (of whom 7 % were refugees). This is equivalent to
2.2% of the world population in 1970 and 3.1 % in 2010. Of course, the majority of
migrants end up in the developed countries, with immigrants being more than 12% of
the population in OECD countries.
Globalization has led to intensifying cross-border networks and linkages. The
expansion of global transport infrastructure, competitive forces, and transportation
technology have made in particular air travel cheaper than ever before. Moreover,
cheap international communication lowers the cost of migrants maintaining relation-
ship capital (McCann et al. 2010). These trends have together led to a remarkable
increase in short-range and long-range mobility of people that has contributed to
greater international migration, with immigrants conventionally defined as anyone
living 12months or more outside their country of birth. Consequently, cross-border
migration has become a mega-trend of a globalizing world, to the extent that some
people even speak of the ‘age of migration’ (see Goldin et al. 2011).
What determines the spatial patterns of international migration? To answer this
question, A. Caragliu, C. Del Bo, H. L. F. de Groot, and G.-J. M. Linders use the
conventional but remarkably robust workhorse of spatial interaction modeling: the
gravity model, which has been applied to international bilateral flows since Tinbergen
(1962) and Pöyhönen (1963), who were the first to model international trade patterns.
Various microfoundations have now been given for why the Newtonian law of physics
(which states that the gravitational attraction exerted on an object by a body declines
with the (squared) distance between the objects attracted and is proportional to the
masses of the bodies) is a consistent empirical success in explaining different types
of flows, such as migration, commuting, shopping trips, tourism, and trade (see also
Genc et al. 2011).
Caragliu et al. use predominantly EUROSTAT data on flows between global source
countries and European destinations. Caragliu et al. find that international migration
is positively related to the population “mass” of the origin and destination countries,
while inversely related to the distance between capital cities. The elasticities are much
lower, however, than those suggested by the physical gravity model (which are 1, 1 and
−2 respectively). Caragliu et al. argue that what matters more than physical distance
is the cultural distance between the countries. They measure this cultural distance in
various ways, through inter-country differences in trust, financial transparency, mate-
rialism, secularization, and democracy. The authors conduct a wide range of robust-
ness checks of their model and find broad support for the hypothesis that not only
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Special issue on international migration 3
geographical distance but also cultural distances in terms of differences in trust,
finance, and institutions exert a negative effect on migration flows. However, the
magnitude of the impact of cultural distance is rather sensitive to the specifications.
Moreover, the underlying behavioral mechanisms warrant further attention, ideally by
means of micro data.
In the second paper of this mini special issue, A. Ivlevs focuses on the propensity
to emigrate from the perspective of one of the more recent EU member states, namely
Latvia. Using 2005 survey data, he models emigration intentions by means of an
ordered probit model. The case of Latvia is of interest because of the large inward
migration of ethnic Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians up to the 1980s and
the radically changing status of these immigrants in the host society following the
break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, Russian is no longer recognized
as an official language, which puts the migrants, who are often monolingual, at an
economic disadvantage. Nonetheless, following an initial wave of return migration,
many ethnic Russians remained, among whom a significant number had been born in
Latvia. Ivlevs shows that once Latvia entered the EU, the Russian speaking minority
were more likely to want to emigrate than the Latvian speakers. Moreover, those
having higher education levels had a higher probability of emigration. A lack of data
make it impossible to accurately assess to what extent the 2005 migration intentions
led to subsequent outflows, but the modeling suggested the potential of a brain drain
that could be detrimental to economic development of Latvia. The findings are likely
to apply to several other Central and Eastern European countries as well.
Ethnicity and migrant networks are not only factors in emigrant self-selection,
but they also impact on integration of immigrants in the host country. K. M. Mane
and B. S. Waldorf consider two countries which are geographically similar in terms
of their location on the globe and distance from the US, but which have had very
different migration histories in terms of the volume and timing of inflows into the latter
country. The two migrant source concerned are Albania, which is a recent source of
migrants to the US, and Italy, which has been a source of US immigrants since the late
19th century. Mane and Waldorf conduct a microdata analysis based on a sample of
1,151 Albanian-born and 3,432 Italian-born residents of the US, merging data from
the 2000 census and post-2000 American Community Surveys. Mane and Waldorf
estimate Mincerian earnings equations and find that there is significant heterogeneity
across the two migrant groups. This heterogeneity is partly due to selection effects:
new immigrants from Italy include professionals whose migration to the US is only
intended to be temporarily. Predictors include human capital, immigration-specific
variables such as age at entry and English language proficiency, conventional earnings
determinants such as demographic characteristics and occupation, and location in the
US. Controlling for all these factors, Albanian immigrants earn less than their Italian
counterparts. It is posited that this earnings gap is predominantly determined by the
lesser transferability of Albanian educational credentials and experience. Nonetheless,
the increase in earnings after settlement in the US is faster for this group which starts
with the greater initial income gap, a finding which is quite common in the literature
on immigrant economic assimilation.
International migration is not a stand-alone process, but interrelated with other
international flows such as trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), tourism, and
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4M. Gheasi et al.
remittances. For example, the ratio of global merchandise exports to global GDP
increased from under 11% in 1970 to over 26 % by 2008 (World Bank 2010). FDI
has similarly increased from 7 to 22% of global GDP between 1980 and 2003
(Wickramasekara 2008), and the growth in tourism was even stronger with 700 million
worldwide tourist trips in 2000 as compared to 25million in 1950 (Fischer 2007).
Finally, remittances into the developing world increased fivefold between 1990 and
2004 (World Bank 2008).
Migrants are considered a bridge of information between the host country and their
country of origin. Moreover, they boost an interest in the range of goods, services,
and amenities on offer in the host and home countries. Consequently, studies have
found a close relationship between immigration and international trade (reviewed by
Genc et al. 2011), and between immigration and international tourism (reviewed by
Gheasi et al. 2011). In this special issue, M. Gheasi, P. Nijkamp, and P. Rietveld
consider the link between migration and FDI. Gheasi et al. focus on inward and outward
FDI with respect to the United Kingdom, using annual data from 2001 to 2007. The
approach is again a gravity model. They find that generally outward FDI from the
UK, but not inward FDI into the UK, is affected by the stock of migrants from the
destination and source countries, respectively. However, knowledge migrants (those
with higher education) have a positive association with both inward and outward FDI,
while immigrants with lower education are negatively correlated with both inward
and outward FDI. Of course, in these kinds of models, there is likely to be reverse
causation: FDI may trigger migration. Gheasi et al. control for this by an instrumental
variables approach in which the 10years lag of the share of UK migrants on origin
country population, the cost of passports and religion (a dummy variable for Islamic
countries) are valid instruments. The results are robust to the IV approach.
The final paper in this special issue, by J. Dzansi, focuses on another type of finan-
cial flows triggered by international migration, namely remittances. Dzansi notes that
total global remittances amounted to US$161 by 2004, a substantial source of income
for developing countries. The literature is divided about whether these remittances are
beneficial or harmful for the recipient countries. The inflow of funds could increase
the real exchange rate, which in turn may reduce the export growth potential of the
developing country. Moreover, remittances are a source of non-wage income for the
households left behind by the migrants: this could reduce labor supply. Opposite
the negative effects are the possibilities that remittances could provide finance for
investment and that they would certainly boost consumption, with potential multiplier
effects. Dzansi finds by means of panel regression modeling that there is on balance
a positive impact of remittance inflows on manufacturing growth. This effect is quali-
tatively robust to variations in specification and accounting for endogeneity by means
of 2SLS, although the magnitude of the effects depends rather strongly on the selected
model.
In summary, this special issue provides a range of perspectives on econometric
modeling of causes and consequences of international migration. Although the volume
of global migration has dampened somewhat in recent years due to the global financial
crisis (e.g., Castles 2011), the likely further intensifying economic interaction between
the countries of the world and the increasing geographic mobility of people suggests
that international migration will take an even more prominent place in global socio
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Special issue on international migration 5
economic transformation in the future. We may expect therefore a healthy growth in
research activity on this topic by regional scientists.
Acknowledgments The papers in this special issue were first presented at the 50th Congress of the
European Regional Science Association in Jönköping, Sweden, August 19–23, 2010. The sessions were
organized under the auspices of the Migrant Diversity and Regional Disparity in Europe (MID-REDIE)
research project, funded by the Norface research programme on migration, http://www.norface-migration.
org/. We acknowledge the assistance of Ceren Ozgen in organizing the conference sessions on international
migration.
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