International Economics

• Sponsor: FAFO
• IRES Promoter: Jean-François Maystadt

Project description

The aim of the project is to study the impacts of forced displacement on labor markets in four countries: Colombia, Ethiopia, Jordan and Uganda. The case studies will generate quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence on three interconnected themes:

1. Assessing the impact of refugees on the labor markets; 
2. Understanding coping strategies adopted by the hosts in refugee-hosting areas; and
3. Shedding light on the importance of refugees’ socio-economic integration and the right to work in refugee-hosting economies.

The quantitative analysis will be based on both primary and secondary data. Based on the four case studies, the overarching objective of the project is to draw global policy recommendations and implications for dealing with new displacement in low- and middle-income countries.

• Sponsor: FSR
• IRES Promoter: Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
• Start date: 2017
• End date: 2020

Project description

The project develops a methodology to identify the determinants of long-run changes in comparative advantage across countries. These changes affect the specialization patterns of a country, and have deep consequences for workers and rms as they come with substantial adjustment costs. The project aims to better understand the sources of changes in comparative advantage, and to help the evaluation of policies designed to accompany them.

• Sponsor: FNRS-EOS
• IRES promoters: Joseph Gomes, William Parienté and Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
• IRES researchers: Esther Delesalle, Adam Levai
• Start date: 2018
• End date: 2022

Project description

The process of globalization, and market integration more generally, has created winners and losers, across regions of the world, but also within regions across various individuals and producers, both in developed and developing countries. The traditional recommendation by economists has been to create conditions that allow ‘smooth’ structural adjustments, such that those who lose can move to sectors or occupations that gain, or that at least losers are compensated. While this is rather straightforward “in theory”, in practice costs and benefits of restructuring are not easy to identify and redistribute in real time, which may create substantive losses even in the medium term.

In this project we plan to improve on both the measurement and empirical analysis of the heterogeneous impact of globalization using unique and rich micro-data, at the rm-, region-, and household-level. Throughout the different parts and working packages of our project, we focus on measurement and a more detailed micro- analysis, to identify the heterogeneous effects across a variety of settings, and we do so with a modern view of globalization and market integration — i.e., that trade is more than a mere ow of goods between countries, as traditionally modeled in international trade theory. Firms, the mix of workers they employ to produce a set of differentiated products, and the globally spread production process is central in the analysis. We therefore focus on all three relevant margins of globalization: rms, households and space (cities) in this project.

The different working packages (WPs) share a common focus on micro-data and empirical analysis through state-of-the art micro-econometric techniques, that in part have been developed by the PIs of this project. We rely on a combination of new, and unique detailed datasets which have either been collected by other organizations, or by our own research teams. The coverage of the data and the project is global and local at the same time. The overall project will cover many countries, both rich and poor; but the focus of the specific working packages is local which is inherent in the use of detailed micro-data.

• Sponsor: FNRS-PDR
• IRES Pormoter: Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
• Start date: 2019
• End date:  2022

Project description

The project develops a framework to analyze the economic consequences of deep trade agreements. This new generation of trade agreements, such as the ones signed between the EU and Japan or the EU and Canada (CETA) go much beyond traditional tariff reductions and have at their core the dismantling of many non-tariff barriers. These raise a number of questions about regulatory convergence, the recognition of foreign standards (e.g. should hormone-fed beef be allowed for consumption) and investment protection. Many in the public debate fear a loss of national sovereignty, implying a lower consumer protection and unfair competition to local, high-quality producers. Most existing trade models are ill-equipped to address these questions as they restrict trade liberalization to be similar to a reduction in tariffs. Our project addresses these shortcomings by considering quality standards as a legitimate way to curb consumption or production externalities, and not only as a way to protect the national industry. In this setup, we derive the conditions under which new trade agreements are welfare improving, and provide guidance as to when countries should mutually recognize their standards or not. We also address the role of new trade agreement for international tax competition.

• Sponsor: ARC
• IRES promoter: Frédéric Docquier
• Start date: 2018
• End date: 2023

Project description

The recent refugee crisis placed migration policy in the forefront of the global policy debate. World economy trends suggest that there may be further episodes of large-scale migration in the future. In this context, GLOBMIG is a 48-month project that aims at developing stronger conceptual tools to better understand and model global migration patterns. It has assembled a team of economists, demographers, lawyers, and computer scientists around three objectives: (i) to gain understanding of the long-run root drivers of international migration and of their complex interactions with the socio-demographic, climatic, institutional and economic environments, (ii) to produce integrated projections of migration, population, and global inequality, and (iii) to use the knowledge base to assess the effectiveness and policy coherence of the legal framework. Despite considerable improvements in the recent literature, little is known about the root drivers of long- run trends in the size and structure of migration, about the interplay between internal and international migrations, or about the effects of policy reforms on migration flows and about their coherence with other policies. GLOBMIG aims at shedding light on these issues. It goes beyond the state of the art in combining traditional and innovative sources of data (e.g., big data on cell-phone owners’ mobility, worldwide opinion surveys on migration intentions, geo-referenced data on population changes, comparative data on immigration laws and policies), and in developing new methodologies for processing and analyzing them (e.g., data mining, machine learning, migration accounting models). The project is divided into two phases and six work packages. In the first “designing phase” of the project, general modelling tools will be developed, the inventory and assessment of migration laws and policies will be produced, and the exploratory analyses of innovative data sources will be conducted. In the second “operational phase” (24 months), we will produce specific knowledge on the links between international migration, internal migration, migration policies, demo-economic changes, climatic factors and conflicts.

• Sponsor: IFPRI
• IRES promoter: Jean-François Maysatdt
• Start date: September 2024
• End date: August 2026

Project description

The project seeks to generate evidence, including rigorous evaluations, on effective immediate responses to conflict and displacement,. Specifically, we will exploit within-country data on internal migration to improve our understanding of conflict hotspots and migration corridors in space and time

• Sponsor: World Bank
• IRES Promoter: Jean-François Maystadt

Project description

With the University of Antwerp and a NGO, called Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), we assess the impact of skilled-worker visas on refugees and their families. Refugee talents remain a largely untapped resource: many have skills that are demanded in high-income countries and aspire to migrate; yet they are often locked out of skilled migration systems due to administrative barriers. Our research will examine how facilitating access to skilled-worker visas can unlock skilled migration pathways for refugees and displaced people. Our innovative solution is implemented by TBB, a charity that has built the “Talent Catalog”, a database and software platform to enable refugees to upload their profiles, qualifications, skills and experience. TBB uses this repertoire of more than 75,000 skilled refugees to match talents with employers in need of their skills. TBB then works with employers, governments, civil society, refugee organisations, and global mobility partners to address administrative and practical barriers to migration. Employers gain valuable talent and displaced people have a chance to rebuild their careers and lives. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, our research will assess the impact of skilled-worker visas on refugees and their families. We will identify the enabling factors and challenges that influence the success or failure of the program.