Essays on the economics of migration

Abstract

Does international migration act as a driver of political and social change? Do migrants catalyze the diffusion of new values? This Thesis explores the migration-induced transfer of political and social norms and its linkages with development outcomes. In particular, it examines whether international migrants contribute to a change in preferences and behaviours by channelling modern political and social norms from destination to origin countries. It also investigates the role of destinations in the adoption of different values, since newly-incorporated norms vary according to the level of democracy and equality in host countries. Focusing on Jordan, the first chapter exploits unique data on female empowerment to understand whether return migrants transfer gender norms. The second chapter, instead, studies the impact of both return and current migration on the transfer of political norms. It looks at the interesting case of Morocco, a North- African country that has become a major emigration hub to Europe and where therehave been insistent calls for political change over the last few years. Overall, findings suggest that international migration can be a driver of political and social change. However, the impact of host countries matters, as newly acquired norms and attitudes are not always "superior" to the norms at origin. The last chapter is distinct and studies whether documented and undocumented immigrants have been affected differently by the Great Recession. Adopting a difference-in-differences strategy on 2001-2013 data for Italy, the study shows that before the crisis wages moved in parallel (with a 15 percent premium for documented immigrants). During the recession, however, formal wages did not adjust down while wages of undocumented migrants fell so that by 2013 the gap had grown to 32 percent. Findings are consistent with the view that labour market regulation prevents downward wage adjustment during recessions

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ORCID for Jackline Wahba: orcid.org/0000-0002-0002-3443

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