
Soutenance
Soutenance de thèse d'Ababacar Cissé
le 4 décembre 2023
15h
Essais sur les impacts socioéconomiques de l’immigration et des politiques de restrictions : une application aux économies développées
Membres du jury
Abstract : This thesis aims to investigate the socioeconomic impacts of immigration in developed countries and the consequences of restrictive immigration policies. It is structured around three essays. The first essay reviews recent literature on the impact of immigration on the labour market and public finances in Europe. The literature reveals a weak positive effect of immigration on natives' wages. The impact on employment is slightly negative especially for low-skilled workers because of their adjustments following a migration shock. However, these results are highly dependent on the degree of labour market flexibility. The more rigid the labour market institutions and wages, the greater the negative impact on employment. The literature on refugees mainly focuses on historical migratory episodes (Algerian independence war, refugees from the Balkan wars, Arab Spring, the fall of the Berlin Wall) and therefore remain weakly developed. Generally, refugees or repatriation have negative impacts on wages and employment, but only in the short term. Because effects dissipate over time given the sudden and temporary nature of these shocks. Furthermore, empirical studies show that European migrants have a positive fiscal impact while the impact of non-European migrants is highly dependent on the methodology used but remains low overall. The impact of refugees and asylum seekers is negative mainly because of labour market restrictions they are subjected to which lead to weak economic integration. In general, in most European countries, fiscal imbalance generated by migrants does not threaten the sustainability of the social protection system and their net fiscal contribution improves with age until retirement and with the number of years of residence. Finally, though migrants reduce the demographic dependency ratio, it is not enough to offset the public deficit linked to the ageing of the European population. The second essay assesses the impacts of low- and high-skilled immigration on natives’ demand for redistribution. Our multilevel logistic regressions fail to support a robust direct effect of low and highly skilled immigration on natives’ demand for redistribution. Rather, we find that the effects of immigration on natives’ demand are mainly driven by labour-market causes. They favour more redistribution in non-contributory transfers namely in Jobs and Income when immigrants with similar skill level increases. This means that the higher the competition in the labour market because of an increase in low or highly skilled immigration, the more natives with similar skill levels consider that it is the government’s responsibility to provide jobs for everyone who wants one and to reduce income differences. Also, being unemployed or a retired native has no robust effect on demand for redistribution, and this lends support to the labour market channel. Natives voting for left parties are more likely to favour redistribution particularly when immigrants are relatively skilled. The third essay estimates the size and the compositional effect of restrictive immigration policies. Findings demonstrate that restrictive immigration policies reduce significantly bilateral migration flows. This effect holds regardless of the dimensions (internal or external) and fields (family reunification, labour migration, asylum) in which these restrictions are applied. However, the negative effect of restrictions is more important when migrants come from developing countries and when the host country has a non-point-based immigration system. For the skill composition effects, we find that restrictions increase the probability of a positive selection for migrants coming from poor-origin countries. External restrictions reduce this probability while internal restrictions tend to increase it. Further analysis shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between restrictions and the probability of high-skilled emigration.
Membres du jury
- Monsieur Pierre BERTHAUD, Maître de conférences, HDR, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Directeur de thèse
- Madame Ekrame BOUBTANE, Maître de conférences, Université Clermont Auvergne, Rapporteure
- Monsieur Nong ZHU, Professeur, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Rapporteur
- Monsieur Michel ROCCA, Professeur des Universités, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Examinateur
- Madame Manon DOMINGUES DOS SANTOS, Professeure des Universités, Université Gustave Eiffel, Examinatrice
Abstract : This thesis aims to investigate the socioeconomic impacts of immigration in developed countries and the consequences of restrictive immigration policies. It is structured around three essays. The first essay reviews recent literature on the impact of immigration on the labour market and public finances in Europe. The literature reveals a weak positive effect of immigration on natives' wages. The impact on employment is slightly negative especially for low-skilled workers because of their adjustments following a migration shock. However, these results are highly dependent on the degree of labour market flexibility. The more rigid the labour market institutions and wages, the greater the negative impact on employment. The literature on refugees mainly focuses on historical migratory episodes (Algerian independence war, refugees from the Balkan wars, Arab Spring, the fall of the Berlin Wall) and therefore remain weakly developed. Generally, refugees or repatriation have negative impacts on wages and employment, but only in the short term. Because effects dissipate over time given the sudden and temporary nature of these shocks. Furthermore, empirical studies show that European migrants have a positive fiscal impact while the impact of non-European migrants is highly dependent on the methodology used but remains low overall. The impact of refugees and asylum seekers is negative mainly because of labour market restrictions they are subjected to which lead to weak economic integration. In general, in most European countries, fiscal imbalance generated by migrants does not threaten the sustainability of the social protection system and their net fiscal contribution improves with age until retirement and with the number of years of residence. Finally, though migrants reduce the demographic dependency ratio, it is not enough to offset the public deficit linked to the ageing of the European population. The second essay assesses the impacts of low- and high-skilled immigration on natives’ demand for redistribution. Our multilevel logistic regressions fail to support a robust direct effect of low and highly skilled immigration on natives’ demand for redistribution. Rather, we find that the effects of immigration on natives’ demand are mainly driven by labour-market causes. They favour more redistribution in non-contributory transfers namely in Jobs and Income when immigrants with similar skill level increases. This means that the higher the competition in the labour market because of an increase in low or highly skilled immigration, the more natives with similar skill levels consider that it is the government’s responsibility to provide jobs for everyone who wants one and to reduce income differences. Also, being unemployed or a retired native has no robust effect on demand for redistribution, and this lends support to the labour market channel. Natives voting for left parties are more likely to favour redistribution particularly when immigrants are relatively skilled. The third essay estimates the size and the compositional effect of restrictive immigration policies. Findings demonstrate that restrictive immigration policies reduce significantly bilateral migration flows. This effect holds regardless of the dimensions (internal or external) and fields (family reunification, labour migration, asylum) in which these restrictions are applied. However, the negative effect of restrictions is more important when migrants come from developing countries and when the host country has a non-point-based immigration system. For the skill composition effects, we find that restrictions increase the probability of a positive selection for migrants coming from poor-origin countries. External restrictions reduce this probability while internal restrictions tend to increase it. Further analysis shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between restrictions and the probability of high-skilled emigration.
Localisation
Salle visio 506, Bateg (bâtiment Économie gestion sur le plan)
Mis à jour le 13 novembre 2023