Two prominent features of globalization in recent decades are the remarkable increase in trade and in migratory flows between industrializing and industrialized countries. Due to restrictive laws in the receiving countries and high migration costs, the increase in international migration has involved mainly highly educated workers. During the same period, technology in developed countries has become progressively more skill-biased, increasing the productivity of highly educated workers more than less educated workers. This paper extends a model of trade in differentiated goods to analyse the joint phenomena of migration and trade in a world where countries use different skill-specific technologies and workers have different skill levels (education). We calibrate the model to match the features of the Western European countries (EU-15) and the new Eastern European members of the EU. We then simulate the effects of freer trade and higher labor mobility between the two regions. Even in a free trade regime the removal of the restrictions on labor movements would benefit Europe as a whole by increasing the GNP of Eastern and Western Europe. Interestingly, we also find that the resulting skilled migration (the so-called "brain drain") from Eastern European countries would not only benefit the migrants but, through trade, could benefit the workers remaining in Eastern Europe as well.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
13631.
Length: Date of creation: Nov 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13631
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Find related papers by JEL classification: F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers O52 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe
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