1. Economic research on diversity: international perspectives Jacques Poot Professor of Population Economics Diversity Research Forum Claudelands Event Centre, Hamilton Monday 22 August 2011
2. What is the focus of economic research on diversity? (*) = covered in this presentation Measurement of diversity (*) Wages and employment (*) Productivity and innovation (*) Consumption and trade (*) Segregation and segmentation Discrimination Decision-making
3. Diversity has many dimensions Research covers: gender, age, ethnicity, birthplace/nationality, disability, sexual orientation, religion This presentation focuses on diversity through international migration only
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6. “Continent of Birth” diversity of the world’s population (excluding the “host” population)
7. Socio-economic impacts of international migration and population diversity There is a need for a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach: Migration Impact Assessment (MIA) MIA is not the same as Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) MIA is also multi-method: using quan, qual and mixed methods, and meta-analysis
8. A summary: Longhi et al. (2010) in Environment and Planning C – Government and Policy Wage and employment impacts of immigration on the host population are almost negligibly small Migrants usually ‘complement’ host population work force but are ‘substitutes’ for earlier migrants with similar skills Institutions matter: in the US wage effects are bigger than employment effects; in Europe it is the opposite Migration ‘greases the wheels’ of the labour market Meta-analyses of labour market impacts
9. Impact of diversity on productivity and innovation Forbes Insights report August 2011 “Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce” Method: survey of 321 executives of large global enterprises; some in-depth interviews Conclusions: Diversity is a key driver of innovation and success on a global scale! Competition for ‘talent’ is fierce in today’s global economy There has been a lot of progress on gender and ethnic diversity/inclusion, but less on disability and age
11. Patent applications per million inhabitants andthe share of foreign residents in 170 NUTS 2 regions in 1991 and 2001 Positive relationship, but not necessarily linear The correlation coefficient increased from 0.33 to 0.48 The patents pattern is less clustered in 2001
12. Economists are trying hard to solve the causality problem by new techniques: Finding ‘instrumental variables’ Finding ‘counterfactuals’ Using ‘natural experiments’ Using policy-linked randomization In the case of diversity and innovation research, we found an interesting ‘instrument’ Does correlation imply causation?
13. EU12 NUTS2 regions | Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- McDonald’s (number) | 340 26.95882 24.74134 0 189 Per million population | 340 13.49947 7.086818 0 33.6 Other instruments: the presence of a capital city; the area of the region
14. Impact of diversity on patent applications in Europe An increase in the diversity index by 0.1 from the regional mean of 0.5 increases patent applications per million inhabitants by about 0.2 percent!
15. From macro to micro: Dutch data on innovation This study combines 4 confidential high-quality firm/individual level micro-datasets obtained from Statistics Netherlands. Social Statistics Survey (SSB_Banen - REOS) – 10 million obs. Community Innovation Survey (CIS 3.5), (Survey + Census of firms with >100 empl.) 10 000 obs. Dutch Labour Force Survey (EBB) – 83 000 obs. Dutch Municipality registrations (GBA) – 16 million obs. CIS: is a regular snapshot of infrastructure /inputs /outputs /obstacles of innovation by firms EBB: is a regular screening of labour market and employees on household /ethnicity /country of birth /job situation /education /trade union /commuting 15
16. Results from the analysis of Dutch data “Solving” the causality problem with instruments for predicting predict the share of foreign born in the firm in 2002: the number of foreign restaurants per 10 000 municipality population the migrant population stock in 1996 Main conclusion: Employing more migrants does not boost innovation, but, among those firms that hire skilled immigrants, greater diversity of the foreign workers enhances product innovation!
19. An increase in the number of immigrants by 10 percent increases the volume of trade by about 1-2 percent. The impact is lower for trade in homogeneous goods. The migrant impact on imports is on average similar to that of exports. The migrant impact appears to be greater for migration between countries of different levels of development. Broad conclusions of the trade meta-analysis
20. Relevance of this MIA research for New Zealand MIA suggests generally positive or neutral economic impacts However, old myths die hard! NZ, Australian and Canadian policies are generally seen as better than elsewhere, consequently: (1) are expected to yield even better impacts (2) are become ‘role model’ for policy development
21. Hodgson and Poot (2010) New Zealand Research on the Economic Impacts of Immigration 2005–2010 - Synthesis and research agenda. Download from http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/research/synthesis-research/ Nijkamp, Poot and Sahin (eds.) (2012) Migration Impact Assessment: New Horizons. Edward Elgar. Interested in more details?
