IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lmu/muenar/19321.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The economics of human trafficking and labour migration: Micro-evidence from Eastern Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Omar Mahmoud, Toman
  • Trebesch, Christoph

Abstract

Human trafficking is a humanitarian problem of global scale, but quantitative research on the issue barely exists. This paper is the first attempt to analyze the economics of human trafficking and labour migration based on micro data, using unique household surveys from Belarus, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine. We find that individual trafficking risks are much higher in regions with large emigration flows. The reasons are lower recruitment costs for traffickers in emigration areas and, to a less extent, more negative self-selection into migration. Our results also indicate that illegal migration increases trafficking risks and that better information, e.g. through awareness campaigns, might be an effective strategy to reduce the crime. These findings may help policymakers to better target anti-trafficking efforts.

Suggested Citation

  • Omar Mahmoud, Toman & Trebesch, Christoph, 2010. "The economics of human trafficking and labour migration: Micro-evidence from Eastern Europe," Munich Reprints in Economics 19321, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lmu:muenar:19321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:ilo:ilowps:338944 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Carrington, William J & Detragiache, Enrica & Vishwanath, Tara, 1996. "Migration with Endogenous Moving Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 909-930, September.
    3. Arnab K. Basu & Nancy H. Chau, 2003. "Targeting Child Labor in Debt Bondage: Evidence, Theory, and Policy Implications," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 255-281, December.
    4. Gathmann, Christina, 2008. "Effects of enforcement on illegal markets: Evidence from migrant smuggling along the southwestern border," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1926-1941, October.
    5. Paul Winters & Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2001. "Family and Community Networks in Mexico-U.S. Migration," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(1), pages 159-184.
    6. Ricardo Hausmann & Lant Pritchett & Dani Rodrik, 2005. "Growth Accelerations," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 303-329, December.
    7. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    8. Thomas Bauer & Gil S. Epstein & Ira N. Gang, 2007. "The Influence of Stocks and Flows on Migrants’ Location Choices," Research in Labor Economics, in: Aspects of Worker Well-Being, pages 199-229, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Clemens, Michael A. & Montenegro, Claudio E. & Pritchett, Lant, 2008. "The place premium : wage differences for identical workers across the US border," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4671, The World Bank.
    10. Freeman, Richard B., 1999. "The economics of crime," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 52, pages 3529-3571, Elsevier.
    11. Bauer, Thomas K. & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 1999. "Assessment of Possible Migration Pressure and its Labour Market Impact Following EU Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe," IZA Research Reports 3, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 4, pages 69-91, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Guido Friebel & Sergei Guriev, 2006. "Smuggling Humans: A Theory of Debt-financed Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(6), pages 1085-1111, December.
    14. Harff, Barbara, 2003. "No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 57-73, February.
    15. Dennis Görlich & Christoph Trebesch, 2008. "Seasonal Migration and Networks—Evidence on Moldova’s Labour Exodus," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 144(1), pages 107-133, April.
    16. Yves Zenou, 2003. "The Spatial Aspects of Crime," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 459-467, 04/05.
    17. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 1999. "Why Is There More Crime in Cities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 225-258, December.
    18. Tamura, Yuji, 2010. "Migrant smuggling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 540-548, August.
    19. Luecke, Matthias & Omar Mahmoud, Toman & Steinmayr, Andreas, 2009. "Labour migration and remittances in Moldova: Is the boom over?: Trends and preliminary findings from the IOM-CBSAXA panel household survey 2006- 2008," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 32525, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    20. Orrenius, Pia M. & Zavodny, Madeline, 2005. "Self-selection among undocumented immigrants from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 215-240, October.
    21. Freeman, Scott & Grogger, Jeffrey & Sonstelie, Jon, 1996. "The Spatial Concentration of Crime," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 216-231, September.
    22. King, Gary & Zeng, Langche, 2001. "Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 137-163, January.
    23. Daniel Chiquiar & Gordon H. Hanson, 2005. "International Migration, Self-Selection, and the Distribution of Wages: Evidence from Mexico and the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 239-281, April.
    24. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    25. Leblang, David & Satyanath, Shanker, 2008. "Politically generated uncertainty and currency crises: Theory, tests, and forecasts," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 480-497, April.
    26. Sylvain E. Dessy & Stephane Pallage, 2006. "Some Surprising Effects of Better Law Enforcement Against Child Trafficking," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 8(1), pages 115-132.
    27. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    28. Domar, Evsey D., 1970. "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 18-32, March.
    29. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    30. Amin, Mohammad & Mattoo, Aaditya, 2006. "Can guest worker schemes reduce illegal migration ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3828, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Omar Mahmoud, Toman, 2010. "Shocks, income diversification and welfare in developing and transition countries," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 59754, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Omar Mahmoud, Toman & Trebesch, Christoph, 2009. "The Economic Drivers of Human Trafficking: Micro-Evidence from Five Eastern European Countries," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 39939, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Emmanuelle Auriol & Alice Mesnard, 2016. "Sale of Visas: a Smuggler's Final Song?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(332), pages 646-678, October.
    4. Parag Mahajan & Dean Yang, 2020. "Taken by Storm: Hurricanes, Migrant Networks, and US Immigration," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 250-277, April.
    5. Simone Bertoli, 2010. "Networks, Sorting and Self-selection of Ecuadorian Migrants," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 97-98, pages 261-288.
    6. Mckenzie, David & Rapoport, Hillel, 2007. "Network effects and the dynamics of migration and inequality: Theory and evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-24, September.
    7. Guido Friebel & Miriam Manchin & Mariapia Mendola & Giovanni Prarolo, 2018. "International Migration Intentions and Illegal Costs: Evidence from Africa-to-Europe Smuggling Routes," Working Papers 393, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2018.
    8. David McKenzie & Hillel Rapoport, 2010. "Self-Selection Patterns in Mexico-U.S. Migration: The Role of Migration Networks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 811-821, November.
    9. Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús, 2013. "Understanding different migrant selection patterns in rural and urban Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 182-201.
    10. Gordon H. Hanson, 2006. "Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 869-924, December.
    11. Hanson, Gordon H., 2010. "International Migration and the Developing World," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4363-4414, Elsevier.
    12. Jesus Fernández-Huertas Moraga, 2008. "Wealth constraints, skill prices or networks: what determines emigrant selection?," Working Papers 346, Barcelona School of Economics.
    13. Friebel, Guido & Manchin, Miriam & Mendola, Mariapia & Prarolo, Giovanni, 2018. "International Migration Intentions and Illegal Costs: Evidence Using Africa-to-Europe Smuggling Routes," CEPR Discussion Papers 13326, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Klabunde, Anna, 2014. "Computational Economic Modeling of Migration," Ruhr Economic Papers 471, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    15. Milo Bianchi, 2013. "Immigration Policy and Self-Selecting Migrants," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, February.
    16. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    17. Dennis Görlich & Christoph Trebesch, 2008. "Seasonal Migration and Networks—Evidence on Moldova’s Labour Exodus," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 144(1), pages 107-133, April.
    18. Jesúús Fernández-Huertas Moraga, 2011. "New Evidence on Emigrant Selection," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 72-96, February.
    19. Gordon H Hanson & Craig McIntosh, 2010. "The Great Mexican Emigration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 798-810, November.
    20. Pablo Ibarraran & Darren Lubotsky, 2007. "Mexican Immigration and Self-Selection: New Evidence from the 2000 Mexican Census," NBER Chapters, in: Mexican Immigration to the United States, pages 159-192, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lmu:muenar:19321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.