The Causes And Effects Of International Labor Mobility: Evidence From OECD Countries 1980-2005

This paper contains three important contributions to the literature on international migrations. First, it compiles a new dataset on migration flows and stocks and on immigration laws for 14 OECD destination countries and 74 sending countries for each year over the period 1980-2005. Second, it extends the empirical model of migration choice across multiple destinations, developed by Grogger and Hanson (2008), by allowing for unobserved individual heterogeneity between migrants and non-migrants. The authors also find that bilateral flows decrease significantly when the destination countries adopt stricter immigration laws. Third, they estimate the impact of immigration flows on employment, investment and productivity in the receiving OECD countries using as instruments the "Push" factors only in the gravity equation.