L'immigration : quels effets économiques ?

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