Jain, Sanjay, Majumdar, Sumon and Mukand, Sharun W. (2010) Workers without borders? Culture, migration and the political limits to globalization. Working Paper. Coventry: Department of Economics, University of Warwick. CAGE Online Working Paper Series, Volume 2010 (Number 19).

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Abstract

This paper examines the role of cultural factors in driving the politics, size and nature (temporary versus permanent migration) of migration policy. We show that there exists a broad political failure that results in inefficiently high barriers restricting the import of temporary foreign workers
and also admitting an inefficiently large number of permanent migrants. Strikingly, we show that countries that are poor at cultural assimilation are better positioned to take advantage of temporary foreign worker programs than more culturally diverse and tolerant countries. Furthermore,
relaxing restrictions in the mobility of migrant workers across employers has the potential to raise host country welfare even though it increases migrant wages and lowers individual firms' profits. We also demonstrate the existence of multiple equilibria: some countries have mostly temporary migration programs and see a low degree of cultural assimilation by migrants, while other countries rely more on permanent migrants and see much more assimilation.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JC Political theory
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Immigrants, Immigrants -- Cultural assimilation, Emigration and immigration, Assimilation (Sociology), Culture and globalization
Series Name:	CAGE Online Working Paper Series
Publisher:	Department of Economics, University of Warwick
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Official Date:	September 2010
Dates:	Date Event September 2010 Published
Volume:	Volume 2010
Number:	Number 19
Number of Pages:	42
Institution:	University of Warwick
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Bankard Fund for Political Economy

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