L’immigration, quels effets économiques ?

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• Article - Revue d’économie politique

Résumé

Dans cet article, après un rapide examen de la présence en France de populations étrangères, nous montrons que ni la théorie, ni les analyses empiriques, ne confirment que ces populations ont un impact négatif sur l’emploi et les rémunérations. De nos estimations économétriques ressortent peu d’effets significativement négatifs et souvent des effets positifs. Il en est de même pour les autres effets : les déséquilibres budgétaires sont peu affectés ; le résultat sur le taux de croissance est ambigu. Un recours massif à l’immigration dans le demi-siècle prochain pour faire face aux évolutions démographiques a également des effets incertains. Il pose en effet un problème d’ajustement qualitatif entre la demande des pays développés et l’offre des pays d’émigration. Le fonctionnement des marchés internationaux du travail devrait être fortement modifié, rendant inopérantes les politiques actuelles de régulation quantitative.

Abstract

In this contribution, we analyze the economic consequences of immigration into France. France has a long tradition of hosting foreign populations. As in most developed countries, recent immigrants come from few countries (mainly from the Mediterranean Basin), are highly concentrated in a few areas and their skill level is low. As in most developed countries, French immigration policies are restrictive. Barriers to immigration are justified on the ground that immigrants hurt natives, mainly because they compete with them on labor markets, resulting in higher unemployment rates or lower wage rates. However, we show that a review of economic theory does not confirm this idea. And, as in most applied studies from various countries, our estimations using data from the French Labor Force surveys also lead to ambiguous conclusions. Few effects are statistically significant and most significant effects are positive. The examination of other effects leads to similar conclusions. If past effect are ambiguous, can we expect positive impacts in the future ? Can immigration be a solution to the economic problems raised by demographic trends, notably the expected increase of support ratios implied by the arrival of baby-boomers at the retirement age and the decrease in fertility rates? We show that this solution raises two unanswered questions. First, developed countries will probably look for medium and highly skilled workers, difficult to import from underdeveloped countries. Second migration flows needed to stabilize support ratios are very high. The behavior of international labor markets will completely change and current quantitative immigration policies will be ineffective.

Citation

Jayet, Hubert, Ragot, Lionel and Rajaonarison, Dominique, (2001), L'immigration: quels effets économiques ?, Revue d'économie politique, 111, issue 4, p. 565-596, https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cai:repdal:redp_114_0565.

@ARTICLE{RePEc:cai:repdal:redp_114_0565,
title = {L'immigration: quels effets économiques ?},
author = {Jayet, Hubert and Ragot, Lionel and Rajaonarison, Dominique},
year = {2001},
journal = {Revue d'économie politique},
volume = {111},
number = {4},
pages = {565-596},
abstract = {In this contribution, we analyze the economic consequences of immigration into France. France has a long tradition of hosting foreign populations. As in most developed countries, recent immigrants come from few countries (mainly from the Mediterranean Basin), are highly concentrated in a few areas and their skill level is low. As in most developed countries, French immigration policies are restrictive. Barriers to immigration are justified on the ground that immigrants hurt natives, mainly because they compete with them on labor markets, resulting in higher unemployment rates or lower wage rates. However, we show that a review of economic theory does not confirm this idea. And, as in most applied studies from various countries, our estimations using data from the French Labor Force surveys also lead to ambiguous conclusions. Few effects are statistically significant and most significant effects are positive. The examination of other effects leads to similar conclusions. If past effect are ambiguous, can we expect positive impacts in the future ? Can immigration be a solution to the economic problems raised by demographic trends, notably the expected increase of support ratios implied by the arrival of baby-boomers at the retirement age and the decrease in fertility rates? We show that this solution raises two unanswered questions. First, developed countries will probably look for medium and highly skilled workers, difficult to import from underdeveloped countries. Second migration flows needed to stabilize support ratios are very high. The behavior of international labor markets will completely change and current quantitative immigration policies will be ineffective. Classification JEL : F22, J31, J61},
keywords = {immigration; labor markets; demography},
url = {https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cai:repdal:redp_114_0565}
}