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Deep Trade Agreements and International Migration: The Role of Visa Provisions

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  • Levelu,Anthonin
  • Mayda,Anna Maria
  • Orefice,Gianluca

Abstract

An increasing number of regional trade agreements contains provisions that ease access tovisas among member countries, which reduces the administrative cost of crossing the border. Combining UnitedNations data on bilateral stocks of immigrants in the period 1990-2020 with World Bank data on the content of 279regional trade agreements, this paper presents robust evidence of a positive effect of visa provisions in regionaltrade agreements on bilateral migration: the presence of visa provisions in regional trade agreements increases thebilateral stock of immigrants by 5.9 percent. This result is robust to an instrumental variable strategy addressing theendogeneity problem. The effect of the inclusion of visa provisions in regional trade agreements is particularlyeffective among country pairs with different income levels (such as North-South). For this type of country pairs, thepresence of visa provisions in regional trade agreements increases the bilateral stock of immigrants by 13 percent.Finally, the paper shows that the effectiveness of visa provisions in regional trade agreements reduces with theanti-immigration sentiment of voters in the destination.

Suggested Citation

  • Levelu,Anthonin & Mayda,Anna Maria & Orefice,Gianluca, 2023. "Deep Trade Agreements and International Migration: The Role of Visa Provisions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10324, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10324
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bertoli, Simone & Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús, 2013. "Multilateral resistance to migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 79-100.
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    3. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2020. "Difference-in-Differences Estimators of Intertemporal Treatment Effects," Papers 2007.04267, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    4. Berthélemy, Jean-Claude & Beuran, Monica & Maurel, Mathilde, 2009. "Aid and Migration: Substitutes or Complements?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1589-1599, October.
    5. Bertoli, Simone & Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús, 2015. "The size of the cliff at the border," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-6.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

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