Now, it seems, Mexican authorities will reinforce the southern border . . . how ironic

The idea is that Mexico can't deal with immigrants from the south, meaning, mainly, Central Americans. How ironic . . . 

Last year, Mexico deported 89,000 Central Americans, including 9,000 children, the bulk of the returnees coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, officials have said. In the fiscal year that ended last September, the United States sent back 106,420 from those countries. 

So far this year, Mexico has detained 53 child migrants a day, mostly Central American, double the pace of the same period last year. It has deported more than 30,000 Central Americans so far this year, including more than 14,000 Hondurans, driven home on packed buses at least three times a week. 

Francisco Alba, a migration scholar at the Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, said the influx creates a conundrum: It is almost impossible to stop the flow, yet the country cannot support a large population of refugees. 

“There is not really much the country can do about it,” Mr. Alba said. “It cannot really stop these flows. Its tradition is to not have these tight controls and to have a relatively accommodating attitude toward migration, to a point.” 

Immigration and Crime

There is an interesting papers in the American Law and Economics Review on this topic. The abstract:

What is the Contribution of Mexican Immigration to U.S. Crime Rates? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in Mexico 

This paper identifies a causal effect of Mexican immigration on crime using an instru- ment that leverages temporal variation in rainfall in different regions in Mexico as well as persistence in regional Mexico–U.S. migration networks. The intuition behind the instrument is that deviations in Mexican weather patterns isolate quasi-random varia- tion in the assignment of Mexican immigrants to U.S. cities. My findings indicate that Mexican immigration is associated with no appreciable change in the rates of either violent or property crimes in U.S. cities.

And from the conclusions (p. 264)

These results are broadly consistent with those in the extant literature, which has tended to report either null or weakly negative effects of immigration on crime. The estimates are also broadly consistent with the empirical regularity that changes in the demographic composition of cities tend to only weakly predict changes in crime, conditional on fixed effects.

Economía para un mundo creativo y mas

Lecturas sobre el sistema de salud en Taiwan:

Taiwán reformó su sistema de salud en 1995, cuando estableció un sistema de salud universal. Lo que significa que la mayoría de taiwaneses disponen de un seguro de salud proporcionado en gran medida por el estado. El sistema es financiado por los aportes individuales, patronales, e impuestos sobre el tabaco, la lotería y otros. La cantidad de personas con seguro de salud paso de un 57 (en 1994) a un 98% aproximadamente (en 2014). Esta reforma ha tenido efectos positivos y negativos. Por el lado positivo podemos decir que la reforma aumentó el acceso a servicios médicos (mas consultas y tratamientos) a personas de escasos recursos, pero también trajo un cambio en los incentivos de los proveedores. Los doctores y hospitales son remunerados por el estado, el que establece preciso topes tanto al precio de medicina como a los servicios que se proveen. Estas regulaciones han reducido la calidad de algunos servicios, por ejemplo los tiempos de consulta pueden ser muy cortos (pueden llegar a ser de 5 minutos por consulta). Ademas, algunos estudiantes de medicina prefieren estudiar especializaciones que no son reguladas, por ejemplo cirugía plástica. Las regulaciones en los precios por medicamentos pueden ser especialmente problemáticas, ya que al haber precios topes, alguna farmacéuticas tienen menos incentivos de vender sus productos en el país.

Hay un artículo que encuentra que el tratamiento de cáncer es mas efectivo en el caso de doctores y hospitales que tratan una gran cantidad de estos casos, comparados con doctores y hospitales que tratan una menor cantidad. Es decir la especialización conduce a mayor efectividad. Este es un descubrimiento importante, no solo en Taiwán, sino que también en otros países, donde la tendencia es a desarrollar clústers de servicios médicos especializados en ciertas enfermedades, lo que trae consigo menores costos y mejores resultados.

El sistema de salud en Taiwán podría verse como un subsidio directo a la demanda. Aunque en realidad el dinero no pasa por los consumidores sino que va directamente del estado a los proveedores del servicio (hospitales, etc.). Pero el consumidor puede elegir el proveedor medico que desee, que puede ser un hospital privado o público. Ambos prestan servicios de alta calidad, y algunas personas me han comentado que no notan una diferencia importante entre ambos prestadores. Una de las ventajas de este sistema es que aunque existe alta participación estatal, existe una competencia entre hospitales por clientes. Aunque debo investigar mas al respecto. En este sentido (la competencia dentro de un sistema altamente administrado), el sistema de Taiwán es parecido al sistema de Singapur, donde los hospitales compiten entre ellos. La clave para que este sistema funcione, o una de las claves, es que la calidad de los servicios de hospitales públicos es muy alta.

Hay signos de que los niveles de innovación y salarios en Taiwan se han mantenido constantes, o, no han aumentado. Varias empresas se han mudado a Vietnam o China. Probablemente debido a la situación política de Taiwan, su sistema de salud no aparece usualmente en los rankings (aquí y aquí), sin embargo hay preocupación porque el alto costo de la salud en una economía de lento crecimiento pueda llevar a aumentos significativos en la deuda publica cuya sostenibilidad es incierta. 

Puedes ver mas sobre este tema en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Menos tablas y mas gráficas

Tanto en ciencias políticas como en economía se acostumbra presentar los resultados de análisis, estudios, o investigaciones cuantitativas en tablas. Sin embargo puede ser mas efectivo usar gráficos. El software estadístico "R" puede ser especialmente útil para presentar gráficos de una excelente calidad. Hay una curva de aprendizaje muy inclinada y puede tomar tiempo aprender R. La preparación de un gráfico puede también tomar mucho tiempo en relación al tiempo que toma hacer una tabla, sin embargo los resultados en cuanto a la facilidad de lectura y entendimiento por parte del lector puede ser mucho mejores en gráficos que en tablas, esto incluye resultados de regresiones. 

Puedes ver mas sobre este tema en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Un draft de este libro esta aquí.

6 investigaciones

Estas investigaciones llamaron mi atención esta semana: 

1. Por lo menos en los últimos 100 años existe una tendencia hacia mayor democracia, esto puede deberse principalmente a aumentos en los niveles de educación, y en menos medida a aumentos en el nivel de ingreso. 
2. Hablar otro idioma en casa, ademas del inglés  está correlacionado con menor abandono escolar, mejor estatus laboral, y mayores ingresos en el sur de California. 
3. Los inmigrantes en Alemania que se identifican mas con la cultura y hablan fluidamente alemán están mas satisfechos con su vida.
4. Bajo ciertas especificaciones estadísticas se encuentra que la exposición a alcohol durante la gestación tiene claros efectos negativos.
5. La formación de parejas emprendedoras puede deberse principalmente a las menores oportunidades laborales para las mujeres. Pero una vez establecidos los negocios sus retornos económicos son mayores tanto para la mujer como para los hombres en negocios manejados en pareja. 
6. Se suben los precios, se bajan las horas de servicio, se despiden personas, se reducen otros costos, y/o se reducen las ganancias de propietarios e inversionistas. Estas son las formas en las que los negocios reaccionan ante aumentos en salarios mínimos, de acuerdo a un estudio en Estados Unidos. 

Puedes ver mas sobre estos temas en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Se justifica que alguien acepte sobornos en su trabajo
Esa es una pregunta que se incluye en la Encuesta Mundial de Valores. La encuesta incluye preguntas de ética, cultura, economía. En cuanto a la relación entre genero (hombre o mujer) y la justificación de aceptar sobornos en el trabajo es claro que una mayor proporción de mujeres que de hombres contestan que "nunca se justifica" (72% versus 69%, respectivamente), y la diferencia es significativa. Esto finalmente resulta en mayores niveles de pobreza en México. 

Puedes ver mas sobre este post en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Controles migratorios y apartheid

En un discurso presidencial ante la Asociación Económica del Sureste, Gordon Tullock dijo que en realidad existían muchas similitudes entre el regimen apartheid en Sudáfrica y las políticas migratorias de Estados Unidos y Europa Occidental. Los negros en Sudáfrica eran mantenidos en áreas geográficas especificas, enfrentaban estrictas limitaciones labores, y como resultado eran mas pobres. Lo mismo ocurre con los controles migratorios hacia los inmigrantes mexicanos en Estados Unidos, por ejemplo. Ellos son mantenidos en ciertas areas geográficas, sus derechos como migrantes son limitados, y son deportados regularmente. Como consecuencia son también mas pobres. 

Puedes ver mas sobre este post en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Economía para un mundo creativo

La economía evoluciona de manera compleja y surgen innovaciones que a su vez conducen a otras innovaciones. En ese contexto es muy difícil crear sistemas de ecuaciones que capturen el proceso evolutivo. Por tal motivo se recomienda un enfoque de complejidad, unido a teoría de redes, historia económica y economía institucional para poder entender la economía. Es decir, deben dejarse atrás modelos de ecuaciones multiples que han caracterizado a la economía neoclásica. En el centro del proceso de innovación se encuentra el emprendedor quien crea e innova con base en un pasado que le permite, no de manera causal, innovar. Se dan entonces en la economía procesos que se afectan mutuamente y este proceso no puede describirse como causal. 

Puedes ver mas sobre este post en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Emprendimiento e Islam

Hay evidencia que indica que las sociedades islámicas tienen menores tasas de crecimiento económico. Esto puede ser explicado, en parte, a diferencias importantes que existen en la manera en que los emprendedores actúan. En sociedades musulmanas, en general, existen restricciones legales y culturales a la acciones de emprendedores. El emprendedor no solamente persigue su propio interés sino que, por razones religiosas, debe promover cierto bienestar general. La cultura musulmana limita actividades de especulación y de financiamiento conduciendo a menor toma de riesgos y menor productividad. Algunos cree que por esas razones el "emprendedor occidental" no puede compararse con el "emprendedor en países islámicos."

Puedes ver mas sobre este post en este enlace [en inglés]. 

Immigration control and apartheid

The wisdom of Gordon Tullock: 

Most people to whom I describe this system [of apartheid in South Africa] are shocked. The fact is that the system is identical to the one used by the United States and, indeed, all Western European countries. The only difference is our tradition that foreigners are not really human. What I have said about South Africa’s treatment of its blacks is identical to America’s treatment of Mexicans. They are kept on their “homelands” by what we call immigration control. Those who get into the United States are subject to restrictions on what they can do if they come in legally, and there are a great many of them in the country illegally who are subject to arbitrary deportation although, again, with the right of court appeal if they want it. As a result, the living standard of the Mexicans is very much lower that it would be without this rule.

That is from this post in Cafe Hayek.
Via @bryan_caplan 

Immigration and Crime: Evidence from Canada

Wikimedia Commons

There is fear of immigrants becoming criminals. But the evidence is controversial. Immigration might actually reduce crime because immigrants are in general law-abiding. In fact "immigrants are underrepresented in in the prison population in Canada" (p. 25). 

This paper by Haimin Zhang (see also here) at the University of British Columbia finds that actually immigration reduces crime, and considers short term and long term effects -- for instance the effect of immigration four years in the past on crime rates today. She argues: "as immigrants stay in Canada longer, their crime reduction effect gets larger" (p. 17). Haimin finds that "compared with the native population, immigrants are better educated, older, more likely to be married, and more likely to reside in metropolitan areas." One of the good things about this study is that, in addition to everything else, it examines cultural factors that might explain reductions in crime rates. For example immigrants might tend to underreport crimes. There is some of that but the magnitude is not large. 

There are many statistical - econometrics - challenges in this type of work. For example more immigrants might reduce crime, but also regions affected by less crime might attract more immigrants. "On the other hand, areas with high crime rates might have lower housing prices and therefore attract immigrants with few financial resources" (p. 26). In other words there is a reverse causality. There might also be endogeneity, meaning that there are other factors that reduce crime and increase immigration at the same time, for example good municipal policies. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method does not deal well with those problems and other methods are necessary, such as instrumental variables, which is what the author does in the paper. Zhang explains: To address these issues I use an instrumental variable strategy introduced by Card [2001]: "it is based on the observation that new immigrants tend to settle in areas where their families and friends are."

Some findings:

This study finds that new immigrants do not have a significant impact on property crime rates, but as they stay longer, more established immigrants actually decrease property crime rates significantly. 

. . . with time spent in Canada, a 10% increase in the recent-immigrant share or established-immigrant share decreases the property crime rate by 2% to 3%. 

Finally in the conclusions she explains:

This paper rules out the possibility that immigrants simply do not report to police when crime happens. Similarly, it finds that dilution of the criminal pool by the addition of law-abiding immigrants can not fully explain the size of the estimates. Therefore, the paper concludes that immigration has a spillover effect, such as changing the neighbourhood characteristics and affecting the behaviour of the native population, reducing crime rates in the long run.

Zhang suggests some questions for future research (p. 26-27):

Does immigration reduce crime by affecting labour market outcomes?  

Do immigrants settle in lower income communities and revitalize them? 

Is it possible that the spill over effect operates through family ties and affects second-generation immigrants?

I wonder if crime increases in sending countries as a result of outmigration, or if crime also decreases when migrants move across developing countries. 
I enjoyed reading Zhang's paper.

Open Borders Day

It is Open Borders Day and many memories come to mind. One, for example, is the memory of a group of Central American immigrants who were playing guitars, dancing, and singing CA folk songs in a suburb in Toronto. Some of them came from El Salvador and Guatemala and back home they belonged to different sides in the civil war. 

Another person I remember is a lady who left Guatemala so that her son, who had a disability, could have a better and more respectable life. She brought to Canada her nursing skills. 

I have been migrant myself several times in different countries, but I have been legal.  As a legal immigrant trying to start a life abroad is difficult, especially in a developed country. One needs document A to get document B, and document C to get document A, and document B to get document C. Being a legal immigrant has made me admire illegal immigrants even more. If being a legal migrant is so difficult I can´t even start to imagine what is it like to be an illegal immigrant.

I admire illegal immigrants who had the courage to leave home and face uncertainty, hardship, and danger to look for a better life. Many of them are close family and my heart today, specially, is with them.  

Immigration and wages

I did not find a draft of this paper, which looks at the effect of immigration on wages of unskilled labor using a natural experiment. The abstract

This study exploits the natural experiment, provided by the start of the second intifada, to measure the effect of immigration on the wage and employment of unskilled native workers. It finds that immigration has no effect on the wage or employment of unskilled Jewish workers. The wage and employment of the least-skilled Israeli Arab workers (with zero to five years of schooling) are adversely affected by immigration. The slightly more skilled Arab workers (with six to 11 years of schooling), in contrast, are positively affected by immigration, suggesting a complementarity effect with this group. Different explanations are proposed.

The abstract is taken from the current number of the Southern Economic Journal, which has other interesting articles.  

"Mommy, the President is drinking my chocolate milk!"

“Men in Black III” came out May 25^th of 2012, almost seven months before Barack Obama was elected president for his second time November 6^th. 

Surfing and zapping through TV channels, I´ve frequently stumbled upon Hollywood blockbuster "Men in Black III", and actually watched it for a couple of times for mere entertainment. Yesterday, I ventured into watching it for a third (or fourth) time and it surprised me with dialogues crammed with great deal of social criticism and political and economical satire. Certainly, the movie could have been a great success without those elements of criticism and spoof but, for whatever reason, (I’m thinking the sense of “making extra box-office money over viewers’ laughter” prevailed) the director and the producers chose to include such likable ingredients.

Despite their motivations, it is interesting that such explicit allusions to the past and present circumstances of politics and economics (if you watch the movie again you’ll know what I’m talking about) make it to the big screen and I believe they respond to a widespread fear that has virally infected the conscience of the American citizens and the not-so-citizens (they call them “immigrants”; some of us think of them of an important part of the labor supply of the United States of America).  People are confused and they feel that they live governed by uncertainty and inconsistency, two phenomena that work subconsciously against the interests of the rule of law and a dynamic, productive market.

"Mommy, the President is drinking my chocolate milk!”, said a young little girl in the arms of her mother, confusing “Agent ‘K’” (Will Smith) with president Obama. “And he didn’t say thank you”…  What I hear is: “Mommy, the President is taking things away from us and he is being rude!” I believe that most of us think of government just like this little girl; this administration has made decisions without transparency, righteousness or any sort of reliable and consistent criteria. And this feeling reveals itself in polls like the ones published by Gallup and the Washington Post.

President Obama’s administration has had its ups and downs like any other presidency but, in this case, hazardous characteristics have perpetrated as distinctive traits of his government: the lack of consistency in management horizontally through his collaborates, uncertainty and the erosion of trust and confidence from the American citizens and citizens and leaders from the rest of the world. I’m afraid that his administration will transcend and critically affect the next government, interrupting economic development and political efficency. Obamacare, NSA, CIA, Syria, Iran, War, Snowden, Migratory policies, Benghazi, shutdown… Stop lying! Stop saying you are sorry! Stop stealing our chocolate milk! 

Telecommunications and Outmigration (China)

This paper uses a unique natural experiment in Chinese villages to investigate whether access to telecommunications-- in particular, landline phones -- increases the likelihood of outmigration. By using regional and time variations in the installation of landline phones, the difference-in-differences estimation shows that access to landline phones increases the ratio of out-migrant workers by 2 percentage points, or about 50 percent of the sample mean in China. The results remain robust to a battery of validity checks. Furthermore, landline phones affect outmigration through two channels: information access to job opportunities and timely contact with left-behind family members. The findings underscore the positive migration externality of expanding telecommunications access in rural areas, especially in places where migration potential is large.

That is from this paper by Yi Lu, Huihua Xie, & Lixin Colin Xu.

Landline phones is not be the first thing that comes to mind as a determinant of migration. It is surprising to see how significant that is though, and it makes sense. Leaving home knowing that one can keep in touch with relatives makes a difference. I can't imagine how it feels to leave family behind knowing that communication will be very difficult, and that is precisely the situation that many immigrants have faced. Phones reduce the costs of leaving. 

If we follow the argument we should see an increase in outmigration from poor regions due to cheaper Internet communication. Internet however have other effects such as outsourcing which increases employment in developing countries and as a consequence might reduce outmigration. 

My Child will be a Citizen: Intergenerational Motives for Naturalization (Germany)

This paper argued that parents may have an intergenerational motive to naturalize—in order to secure citizenship for their children—and tested the predictions of the argument in a key case. A reform of German citizenship law in the year 2000 was expected to greatly increase the numbers of foreign residents joining the citizenry. But, although the reform made naturalization easier for many foreign residents, the introduction of jus soli citizenship for large numbers of children born in the country to foreign parents removed a key motive for parents to naturalize.

That is from a paper by Alex Street.  

Is Hispanic Population Contribution to Local Economic Growth in the US?

In the 1990s, rural counties in the United States, which had been losing population, became the destinations for an increasing number of Hispanics, slowing and in some cases reversing population declines. In this paper, we examine whether faster growth in the Hispanic population is linked to faster growth in income per capita in rural counties. Our results indicate strong support for the hypothesis that population growth caused by the increase in Hispanics, whether from international immigrants, migrants from within the United States, or from natural growth in families, has fueled increased economic growth in those small, rural communities whose populations had been in decline during the 1970s or the 1980s. 

The paper is by Dennis Coates and T. H. Gindling. I did not find an ungated version of the paper. 

Why are there so many unauthorized migrants in the United States?

In this paper Emily Ryo says 

My findings show that perceptions of certainty of apprehension and severity of punishment are not significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally; however, perceptions of availability of Mexican jobs and the dangers of border crossing are significant determinants of these intentions. In addition, individuals’ general legal attitudes, morality about violating U.S. immigration law, views about the legitimacy of U.S. authority, and norms about border crossing are significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally. Perceptions of procedural justice are significantly related to beliefs in the legitimacy of U.S. authority, suggesting that, all else being equal, procedural fairness may produce greater deference to U.S. immigration law. Together, the results show that the decision to migrate illegally cannot be fully understood without considering an individual’s underlying values and norms. 

Migrant Physicians and Regulatory Rent-seeking

From a paper by Peterson, Pandya, & Leblang (March 2013): 

We show that over the period 1973-2010 states with greater physician control over licensure requirements imposed more stringent requirements for migrant physician licensure and, as a consequence, received fewer new migrant physicians. By our estimates half of all US states could resolve their physician shortages within five year just by equalizing migrant and native licensure requirements. This article advances research on the political economy of immigration and highlights an overlooked dimension of international economic integration: regulatory rent-seeking as a barrier to the cross-national mobility of human capital, and the public policy implications of such barriers.

The title of the paper is "Doctors with Borders: Occupational Licensing as an Implicit Barrier to High-Skill Migration."

Low-skilled Immigration and Child Care

. . . [L]ow-skilled immigration to the United States has contributed to substantial reductions in the time allocated to basic child care by college-educated mothers of non-school age children. However, these mothers have not reduced the time allocated to more stimulating educational and recreational activities with their children. P. 26.

That is from the conclusions of this paper by Amuedo-Dorantes and Sevilla-Sanz. The tile is "Low-skilled Immigration and Parenting Investments of College-educated Mothers in the United States: Evidence from Time-use Data."

Immigrants Equilibrate Local Labor Markets

This paper has demonstrated that low-skilled Mexican-born workers’ location choices responded very strongly to the geographic variation in labor demand generated by the Great Recession. This behavior is in sharp contrast to low-skilled native-born workers who show little response, and their elasticity even exceeds that of highly skilled natives. Further, the reallocation of Mexican immigrants reduced the variation in employment outcomes for natives living in cities with substantial Mexican-born share. This novel finding represents economically significant behavior, and it is quite robust to a number of alternative interpre- tations.

That is from the conclusions of a new paper by Cadena & Kovak (August 2013). Something I find interesting is how difficult it is to get a visa (not even a working visa) for say a Nigerian or Indian to travel to Guatemala. In other words, some governments of developing countries would like to see more open borders and better treatment to immigrants in the US and Europe when they themselves make things very difficult for immigrants from other developing countries. 

Emigration Graph-of-the-Day

Source.

Tax incentives for immigrants (Denmark)

This paper analyzes the effects of income taxation on the international migration and earnings of top earners using a Danish preferential foreigner tax scheme and population-wide Danish administrative data. This scheme, introduced in 1991, allows new immigrants with high earnings to be taxed at a preferential flat rate for a duration of three years. We obtain three main results. First, the scheme has doubled the number of highly paid foreigners in Denmark relative to slightly less paid ineligible foreigners, which translates into a very large elasticity of migration with respect to the net-of-tax rate on foreigners, between 1.5 and 2. Hence, preferential tax schemes for highly paid foreign workers could create severe tax competition between countries. Second, we find compelling evidence of a negative effect of scheme-induced increases in the net-of-tax rate on pre-tax earnings at the individual level. This finding cannot be explained by the standard labor supply model where pay equals marginal productivity, but it can be rationalized by a matching frictions model with wage bargaining where there is a gap between pay and marginal productivity. Third, we find no evidence of positive or negative spillovers of the scheme-induced influx of high-skilled foreigners on the earnings of highly paid natives.

Source.  

Immigrants and housing demand (the US)

Immigrants are an important and growing source of demand that has bolstered housing markets in recent decades. As recently as 1990, immigrants were heavily concentrated in a few gateway states,such as California, New York and Florida. More recently, growing numbers of immigrants have located in new destinations throughout the nation.This study constructs a demographic-based projection through 2020 of the growth in homeowner and renter households headed by immigrants in the states and regions of the nation.In the decade 2010-2020, immigrants nationwide are projected to account for 32.2 percent of the growth in all households, 35.7 percent of growth in homeowners and 26.4 percent of growth in renter households.

Source: Myers and Pitkin (February 2013).

Immigration and Crime (England and Wales)

. . . [O]nce controlling for under-reporting and for basic demographic characteristics, even though not statistically significant, the effect of being an immigrant on crime is robustly negative across all model specifications (and statistically significant in some of those specifications).

That is from the new paper by Georgios Papadopoulos (February 2013), "Immigration Status and Criminal Behavior: An Application of Estimators for Under-reported Outcomes using the Crime and Justice Survey." The author argues:

. . . [I]mmigrants may be more risk averse and discount future less heavily. As a result, they might be more responsive to potential punishment and other deterrent factors (Bucher and Piehl, 2007). In addition, not only do immigrants face a higher probability of apprehension, but they are also confronted with the threat of deportation. Finally, coming from poorer countries, they are satisfied even with much lower economic outcomes than natives. 

HT: Mark Lee.  

Do happy people migrate?

This paper explores happiness among migrants and stayers in a number of European countries, investigating individuals from eastern European countries who went to western Europe. Migrants generally appear to be happier than those who have remained in the countries of origin – but there is evidence that this difference is the result of a greater tendency towards migration among people with higher levels of happiness (thus not a matter of happiness increasing as a consequence of migration). In addition, there is significant variation by country: migrants from Russia, Turkey and Romania are happier than stayers, but migrants from Poland are significantly less happy than stayers. Models that determine whether a correction for endogeneity is necessary suggest that those country-level differences represent increases and decreases (respectively) in happiness.

That is from an interesting paper by David Bartram (December 2012). I like the conclusions. The title is "Happiness and ‘Economic Migration’: A Comparison of Eastern European Migrants and Stayers."

. . . however, I am less enthusiastic about happiness studies after reading Landsburg's Armchair Economist (2012, chapter 12), and listening to D. McCloskey (see here).