IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-04954690.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do Immigrants Promote Exports?

Author

Listed:
  • Gianluca Orefice

    (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, CESifo - CESifo)

  • Hillel Rapoport

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CEPII - Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales - Centre d'analyse stratégique, LISER - Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research)

  • Gianluca Santoni

    (CEPII - Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales - Centre d'analyse stratégique)

Abstract

How do immigrants promote exports? To answer this question we propose an empirical framework allowing to disentangle the role of migration networks that operate at a bilateral level from that of productivity channels (knowledge diffusion and increased workforce diversity) that operate at the aggregate level. We find evidence supporting both, at the extensive as well as at the intensive margin. The results are robust to using various IV strategies. While richer countries' exports tend to benefit more from immigrants' diversity (especially in sectors characterized by complex production processes), developing countries benefit from knowledge diffusion more.

Suggested Citation

  • Gianluca Orefice & Hillel Rapoport & Gianluca Santoni, 2025. "How Do Immigrants Promote Exports?," Post-Print halshs-04954690, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04954690
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frédéric Docquier & Riccardo Turati & Jérôme Valette & Chrysovalantis Vasilakis, 2020. "Birthplace diversity and economic growth: evidence from the US states in the Post-World War II period [Cultural diversity and economic growth: evidence from the US during the age of mass migration]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 321-354.
    2. Paulo Guimarães & Octávio Figueirdo & Douglas Woodward, 2003. "A Tractable Approach to the Firm Location Decision Problem," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 201-204, February.
    3. Bertoli, Simone & Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús, 2013. "Multilateral resistance to migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 79-100.
    4. Johannes Buggle & Thierry Mayer & Seyhun Orcan Sakalli & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1273-1345.
    5. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Viola Berlepsch, 2019. "Does Population Diversity Matter for Economic Development in the Very Long Term? Historic Migration, Diversity and County Wealth in the US," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 873-911, December.
    6. Christopher Parsons & Pierre‐Louis Vézina, 2018. "Migrant Networks and Trade: The Vietnamese Boat People as a Natural Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 210-234, July.
    7. Felbermayr, Gabriel J. & Toubal, Farid, 2012. "Revisiting the Trade-Migration Nexus: Evidence from New OECD Data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 928-937.
    8. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    9. Dany Bahar & Andreas Hauptmann & Cem Özgüzel & Hillel Rapoport, 2019. "Migration and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Effect of Returning Refugees on Export Performance in the Former Yugoslavia," Working Papers 2019-12, CEPII research center.
    10. Matilde Bombardini & Giovanni Gallipoli & German Pupato, 2012. "Skill Dispersion and Trade Flows," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2327-2348, August.
    11. Caglar Ozden & Christopher R. Parsons & Maurice Schiff & Terrie L. Walmsley, 2011. "Where on Earth is Everybody? The Evolution of Global Bilateral Migration 1960-2000," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 25(1), pages 12-56, May.
    12. Sander Hoogendoorn & Mirjam van Praag, 2012. "Ethnic Diversity and Team Performance: A Field Experiment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-068/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 01 May 2014.
    13. Erik Hornung, 2014. "Immigration and the Diffusion of Technology: The Huguenot Diaspora in Prussia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 84-122, January.
    14. Buono, Ines & Lalanne, Guy, 2012. "The effect of the Uruguay round on the intensive and extensive margins of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 269-283.
    15. Card, David, 2001. "Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 22-64, January.
    16. Ager, Philipp & Brückner, Markus, 2013. "Cultural diversity and economic growth: Evidence from the US during the age of mass migration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 76-97.
    17. Leblang, David, 2010. "Familiarity Breeds Investment: Diaspora Networks and International Investment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 584-600, August.
    18. Elsa Leromain & Gianluca Orefice, 2014. "New revealed comparative advantage index: Dataset and empirical distribution," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 139, pages 48-70.
    19. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1707-1721, September.
    20. Maurice Kugler & Oren Levintal & Hillel Rapoport, 2018. "Migration and Cross-Border Financial Flows," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 148-162.
    21. Arnaud Costinot & Dave Donaldson & Ivana Komunjer, 2012. "What Goods Do Countries Trade? A Quantitative Exploration of Ricardo's Ideas," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 581-608.
    22. Stuhler, Jan & Jaeger, David & Ruist, Joakim, 2018. "Shift-Share Instruments and the Impact of Immigration," CEPR Discussion Papers 12701, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    23. Giovanni Peri & Francisco Requena‐Silvente, 2010. "The trade creation effect of immigrants: evidence from the remarkable case of Spain," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 1433-1459, November.
    24. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Bahar, Dany, 2020. "The hardships of long distance relationships: time zone proximity and the location of MNC's knowledge-intensive activities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    26. Trax, Michaela & Brunow, Stephan & Suedekum, Jens, 2015. "Cultural diversity and plant-level productivity," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 85-96.
    27. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00783759 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Kugler, Maurice & Rapoport, Hillel, 2007. "International labor and capital flows: Complements or substitutes?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 155-162, February.
    29. Keith Head & John Ries, 1998. "Immigration and Trade Creation: Econometric Evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 47-62, February.
    30. Bombardini, Matilde & Gallipoli, Giovanni & Pupato, Germán, 2014. "Unobservable skill dispersion and comparative advantage," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 317-329.
    31. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Leo Kahane & Neil Longley & Robert Simmons, 2013. "The Effects of Coworker Heterogeneity on Firm-Level Output: Assessing the Impacts of Cultural and Language Diversity in the National Hockey League," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 302-314, March.
    33. Sanjaya Lall, 2000. "The Technological Structure and Performance of Developing Country Manufactured Exports, 1985-98," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 337-369.
    34. Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), 2014. "Handbook of International Economics," Handbook of International Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    35. repec:cii:cepiei:2014-q3-139-3 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ariu, Andrea, 2022. "Foreign workers, product quality, and trade: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Ghose,Devaki & Wang,Zhiling, 2023. "Offshoring Response to High-Skilled Immigration : A Firm-Level Analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10371, The World Bank.
    3. Carlo Lombardo & Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco, 2025. "Skilled Immigration and Firm-Level Upgrading as Exports Boosters in a Developing Country," CESifo Working Paper Series 11645, CESifo.
    4. Aksel Erbahar & Ömer Tarık Gençosmanoğlu, 2023. "Migrants and imports: Evidence from Dutch firms," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(360), pages 1204-1228, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianluca Orefice & Hillel Rapoport & Gianluca Santoni, 2021. "How Do Immigrants Promote Exports? Networks, Knowledge, Diversity," CESifo Working Paper Series 9288, CESifo.
    2. Anthony Edo & Lionel Ragot & Hillel Rapoport & Sulin Sardoschau & Andreas Steinmayr & Arthur Sweetman, 2020. "An introduction to the economics of immigration in OECD countries," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 1365-1403, November.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Johann Harnoss & Hillel Rapoport, 2016. "Birthplace diversity and economic prosperity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 101-138, June.
    4. Dany Bahar & Hillel Rapoport & Riccardo Turati, 2019. "Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity? Cross-Country Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 7950, CESifo.
    5. Christopher R. Parsons & L. Alan Winters, 2014. "International migration, trade and aid: a survey," Chapters, in: Robert E.B. Lucas (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, chapter 4, pages 65-112, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Ceren Ozgen, 2021. "The economics of diversity: Innovation, productivity and the labour market," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1168-1216, September.
    7. Adam Levai & Riccardo Turati, 2021. "The Impact of Immigration on Workers’ Protection," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2021021, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), revised 07 Sep 2021.
    8. Dany Bahar & Andreas Hauptmann & Cem Özgüzel & Hillel Rapoport, 2019. "Migration and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Effect of Returning Refugees on Export Performance in the Former Yugoslavia," Working Papers 2019-12, CEPII research center.
    9. Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Peri, Giovanni & Wright, Greg C., 2018. "Immigration, trade and productivity in services: Evidence from U.K. firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 88-108.
    10. Ariu, Andrea, 2022. "Foreign workers, product quality, and trade: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    11. Maria Santana-Gallego & Jordi Paniagua, 2022. "Tourism and migration: Identifying the channels with gravity models," Tourism Economics, , vol. 28(2), pages 394-417, March.
    12. Figueiredo, Erik & Lima, Luiz Renato & Orefice, Gianluca, 2020. "Migration, trade and spillover effects," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 405-421.
    13. Anna D’Ambrosio & Sandro Montresor, 2022. "The pro-export effect of subnational migration networks: new evidence from Spanish provinces," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 158(1), pages 53-107, February.
    14. Cem Ozguzel, 2019. "Essays on migration and productivity [Essais sur les migrations et la productivité]," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) tel-03381203, HAL.
    15. Bahar, Dany & Rapoport, Hillel & Turati, Riccardo, 2022. "Birthplace diversity and economic complexity: Cross-country evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    16. Gianluca Orefice & Gianluca Santoni, 2018. "Exporting creative and cultural products: Birthplace diversity matters!," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(7), pages 1867-1887, July.
    17. Michał Burzyński & Frédéric Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2018. "The Changing Structure of Immigration to the OECD: What Welfare Effects on Member Countries?," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 66(3), pages 564-601, September.
    18. Dany Bahar & Hillel Rapoport, 2018. "Migration, Knowledge Diffusion and the Comparative Advantage of Nations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 273-305, July.
    19. Francesco Campo & Mariapia Mendola & Andrea Morrison & Gianmarco Ottaviano, "undated". "Immigrant Inventors and Diversity in the Age of Mass Migration," Development Working Papers 464, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    20. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Grossmann, Volker & Kohler, Wilhelm, 2012. "Migration, International Trade and Capital Formation: Cause or Effect?," IZA Discussion Papers 6975, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; International trade; Birthplace diversity; Productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04954690. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.