Article
Comparing the employment-output elasticities of migrants and nationals: the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council
Applied Economics Letters
(2016)
Abstract
Many countries have large or increasing migrant populations. We estimate the elasticity of private-sector employment to nonoil GDP for nationals and migrants using a Seemingly Unrelated Error Correction (SUREC) model. We use data from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which have a particularly large share of foreign workers. Our results indicate that the employment response is statistically significantly lower for nationals, who have an estimated short-run elasticity of only 0.15 and a long-run response of 0.7, than for migrants, where the short- and long-run elasticities are 0.35 and almost unity. Lower elasticities could signal higher labour market adjustment costs. In the context of low oil prices, forecasts imply a significant jobs shortfall for nationals in the coming years.
Keywords
- Employment elasticities,
- labour market adjustment costs,
- GCC,
- Gulf Cooperation Council,
- migrants
Disciplines
Publication Date
Fall 2016
Citation Information
Alberto Behar. "Comparing the employment-output elasticities of migrants and nationals: the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council" Applied Economics Letters (2016) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/alberto_behar/49/