The Optimal Migration Duration and Activity Choice after Re-Migration

By Christian Dustmann, Oliver Kirchkamp. Social Science Research Network, 2002

673 citations recorded by the source corpus.

If migrants return to their origin countries, two questions arise which are of immediate economic interest for both immigration and emigration country: What determines their optimal migration duration, and what are the activities migrants choose after a return. Little research has been devoted to these two issues. This paper utilises a unique survey data set which records activities of returned migrants. We first illustrate the activities of immigrants after returning. We show that more than half of the returning migrants are economically active after return, and most of them engage in entrepreneurial activities. We then develop a model, where migrants decide simultaneously about the optimal migration duration, and their after-return activities. Guided by this model, we specify and estimate an empirical model, where the after-return activity, and the optimal migration duration are simultaneously chosen.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f638c501e9cf7605c1ec40732b93f9b949b895c3

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Citations in the corpus

Skilled Migration: The Perspective of Developing Countries (2004, neutral): “…enough savings to access to self-employment and entrepreneurship (see, e.g., Mesnard (2004) and Mesnard and Ravallion (2001) for Tunisia, Dustmann and Kirchkamp (2002) for Turkey, Ilahi (1999) for Pakistan, Woodru¤ and Zenteno (2007) for Mexico, or McCormick and Wahba (2001) for Egypt).”
International Migration with Heterogeneous Agents: Theory and Evidence for Germany, 1967-2009 (2006, positive): “Building on these models, Dustmann and Kirchkamp (2002) and Mesnard (2004) consider problems such as liquidity constraints, differences in purchasing power parities across countries, and enhanced options for selfemployment for return migrants, but use the concept of a representative agent as well.”
International Migration and the Role of Remittances in Eastern Europe (2001, background): “For an analysis of the optimal activity choice of migrants after returning, see Dustmann and Kirchkamp (2001).”
Does University Quality Influence the Interregional Mobility of Students and Graduates? The Case of Italy (2014, background): “Ultimately, a brain drain could positively affect the region of origin, also through return migration, which allows the knowledge acquired in the destination region to be transferred there (DUSTAMANN and KIRCHKAMP, 2002).”
Return migrants: The rise of new entrepreneurs in rural China (2010, background): “E-mail addresses: demurger@gate.cnrs.fr (S. Démurger), hui.xu@ens-lyon.fr (H. Xu).”
Remittances and inequality: a dynamic migration model (2010, background): “Finally, McKenzie and Rapoport (2006b) examine the overall impact of migration on inequality in a large number of Mexican rural communities.”
Immigrant remittances and the venture investment environment of developing countries (2011, background): “…by immigrants from Albania (Kilic et al., 2007), China (Ghosh, 2006), Egypt (McCormick & Wahba, 2003), India (Kuznetsov & Sabel, 2006), Mexico (Demirgüç-Kunt, Ló pez Có rdova, Martínez Pería & Woodruff, 2011; Woodruff & Zenteno, 2007), and Turkey (Dis -budak, 2004; Dustmann & Kirkchamp, 2002).”
Return International Migration and Geographical Inequality: The Case of Egypt (2003, methodology): “Dustmann and Kirchkamp (2002) develop a model where migrants decide simultaneously about the optimal migration duration and their after return activities.”
Chinese researchers returning home: Impacts of international mobility on research collaboration and scientific productivity (2008, background): “Our expectation is that the longer a researcher has spent time abroad, the higher his/her propensity to copublish internationally – though there may be an optimal migration period after which potential benefits of the time spent abroad decrease [KING, 1986; DUSTMANN & KIRCHKAMP, 2003].”