Book Chapter

Labor Market Implications of Immigration and Emigration in the Dominican Republic

Published 1 May 2017 / By Zovanga Kone & Çağlar Özden

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Discusses labor market implications of immigration and emigration in the Dominican Republic, adding a new dimension to the discussion by acknowledging it occupies a unique place in the migration landscape as both an immigration and emigration country. While hosting many Haitians, who have migrated to escape poverty and the effects of the 2010 earthquake, the Dominican Republic also has a similarly large diaspora in the United States. A stylized nested production model captures the extent of substitution—between natives and migrants, high- and low-skilled workers, and formal and informal sectors—and a simulation of the effects of migration for a range of parameter values and immigration levels shows informal low-skilled workers as most negatively affected (owing to their direct substitutability with the immigrants) though the immigration impact for formal high-skilled labor remains minimal. The nonmigrant high-skilled gain, owing to a decline in supply, and the low-skilled lose, due to their complementary role in production.

Citation

Kone, Z. & Özden, Ç. (2017) 'Labor Market Implications of Immigration and Emigration in the Dominican Republic' in Carneiro, F.G. & Sirtaine, S. (eds.) When Growth Is Not Enough: Explaining the Rigidity of Poverty in the Dominican Republic.