Never before have so many people been living outside their country of birth. If migration keeps growing at its current pace, the global migrant stock could grow from 214 to 405 million between 2010-2050. A clear understanding of its causes and effects is crucial to develop sound policies to manage it.
Despite significant process in the recent literature, a number of key issues still need exploring. The project has two main objectives and intends to make critical contributions to ongoing debates about the role for migration policies and migration implications.
The first objective is to improve the understanding of the dynamics of migration and migration policies. Specifically, we aim to characterize migration policies by either combining existing indicators into a single measure of policy toughness, or by comparing effective and desired migration. We will then explain the determinants of these policy measures and see to what extent they allow to effectively control OECD migration. Finally, we will use them to predict future migration flows under several demographic and economic scenarios.
Second, the project addresses some neglected migration issues raised by the rising globalization of labor markets. On the one hand, we will empirically assess how interstate migration affects the prevalence of military conflict. On the other hand, we will study whether natives avoid areas with large concentrations of immigrants and if repulsion effects are stronger for certain nationalities.