Summary Information TF# Database of Emigration Laws and Policies in Developing Countries KCP Window

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1 Summary Information TF# Database of Emigration Laws and Policies in Developing Countries KCP Window Investment Climate & Trade and Integration Sector Trade and Integration Theme Choose an item. Countries Global TTL Name Caglar Ozden Project Period 09/28/ /30/2014 Approving Manager Aaditya Mattoo Grant Amount USD 40, Disbursement 39, I. Research Team (with affiliations and country of origin for non-bank members) Caglar Ozden (DECTI, TTL) Prof. Michael Hiscox (Harvard University, USA) Prof. Michel Beine (U of Luxembourg, Belgium) Andrew Viteritti (U of Chicago, USA) Cassandre Pignon (Harvard, Mexico) Pinar Akcayoz (Harvard, Turkey) Safia Tmiri (Harvard, USA) II. Key outputs since last progress report (GRM) provide numbers only. 1. Number of Outputs in this Fiscal Year Journal Working article paper Policy Research Report Database (in which, how many are openly accessible) Analytical Tools # Peer Reviewed Publications Others total with a addressing (specify) developing gender country issues researcher as one of the primary authors; Number of conference/event organized in this Fiscal Year 0 3. Number of developing country researchers/institutions substantively engaged in this Fiscal Year Developing country researchers 2 Developing country institutions 0 4. Number of trainings provided 0 III. Completion Report (To TTLs: The following Sections from 1 to 5 will be used as a short, non-technical note to summarize your research results and findings. This note will be shared widely with policymakers, regional colleagues, and donors. ) 1. Aims & Objectives (Original aims and objectives of the research, along with any changes or deviations and their justification; note their consistency with Bank, and KCP objectives). Along with economic and social pull/push factors, government policies are the main determinants of global migration patterns and their development impact. To this date, the focus has been mostly on qualitative analysis of the immigration policies of the destination countries in the North. However, in order to maximize the development and growth benefits of global labor movements, origin countries, especially developing countries, need to implement a wide range of supportive policies. 1

2 This was pilot project to explore the feasibility of a larger scale project with a handful of key migrant sending countries. The project was designed several stages. The first stage was to develop the overall methodology on the identification, compilation and coding and of the main categories of laws and policies from original government documents and various other sources. One key innovation of the project is that the coding would be based as much as possible on objective and quantifiable criteria. In the second stage, the methodology was applied to a select sample of origin developing countries and a database was constructed. In the third stage, a detailed technical report was prepared that describes the methodology, the main results and how the database can be extended to the rest of the world. Finally, a more qualitative assessment of "best practices" from the countries in the sample is performed. 2. Project Description (Provide a short overview of the project including background/contextual information, implementation process, challenges & issues, difficulties or surprises, and important interventions or solutions. Please keep this section non-technical, you can elaborate on your methodologies in question 8.) The objective of this pilot database was to make it possible for scholars to address three fundamental research questions concerning emigration laws and regulations: (i) How much, and in what ways, do laws and policies regulating and influencing emigration vary across origin countries and how have they changed over time? (ii) What explains differences across countries, and changes over time, in these laws and policies? (iii) What effects do variations in these laws and policies have on flows of different types of migrants between countries, and what impacts do they have on other types of economic, political, and social outcomes? For this purpose, we hired a number of graduate students and research assistants to assist us in locating, translating and codifying policies and institutions in sending countries that are directly and indirectly related to emigration. Previous scholarly research has mostly focused on immigration policies of destination countries even though these have been rather limited in scope. In order to remedy this shortcoming, a group scholar initiated the International Migration Policy and Law Analysis (IMPALA) Database Project led by Michael Hiscox (Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University) and composed of an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the London School of Economics, the University of Luxembourg, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Sydney. The key focus of the IMPALA project is to gather detailed and comparable data on immigration laws and policies of 26 destination countries and construct quantitative indices. Our project was designed and implemented with a sub-group of these scholars and was carried out in parallel. While the larger IMPALA project covered a large set of issues and in more depth, while our project was meant to be more exploratory and complementary in nature. The database included various categories of laws and policies that impact emigration flows and patterns, remittances and their economic and development impact in origin countries. Some examples are the following: 1 - Citizenship laws 2 - Voting and political participation rights for emigrants 3 - Property ownership rights. 4 - Foreign exchange restrictions or privileges 5 - Financial regulations and domestic tax laws regarding remittances 6 - Income tax treaties or agreements with destination countries on mobility of social welfare benefits 7 - Bilateral labor mobility and visa agreements with main destination countries 2

3 8 - The extent and costs of consular services for migrants. 9 - Exit visas and other mobility restrictions. The main challenge has been identifying the relevant legal documents, translating them, comparing across the countries in our sample, determining their relevance and trying to code them in way that could be used in empirical analysis. The main challenges were the following: understanding legal nuances in laws and regulations written in a range of languages, determining their relevance and impact. We had to communicate with a range of scholars in various disciplines to solve these issues. 3. Results and implication for future research (What have we learnt so far? Any significant achievements including innovations?) As mentioned above, this was an exploratory pilot project. The main conclusion is that the devil is in the details!! It is quite challenging to identify which direct and indirect policies in sending countries truly impact emigration patterns. On one hand, some are direct policies such as those on citizenship laws and consular services. On the other hand, some are indirect such as those on voting rights, property ownership laws. There is a vast range of policies implemented by countries and it is a challenge to code them and translate into numerical indices. Our main success is identifying these policies and managing to code them. The next crucial step is linking them empirically with actual migration patterns and deducing policy implications. 4. Outputs (examples of outputs include but are not limited to major policy research report, working papers, journal articles, policy brief, research tools developed, databases developed, and conferences and seminars) 1) Outputs for entire duration of the project Name (please provide web links to output if available) Output type Status Note (if status is not complete, please provide explanation, and the date it s expected to be completed) What laws and regulations in sending countries are relevant for emigration? Database of emigration related laws and policies in a sample of sending countries Mimeo Preliminary Fall 2014 Database Preliminary Fall 2014 Choose an item. Choose an item. Choose an item. Choose an item. Add more lines for additional outputs 2) If there are outputs that were dropped from the project s original proposal(gfr), please provide explanation 5. Impact & Development Policy Implications 3

4 a. Please describe in detail any policy impact achieved, and/or identify specific policy areas to which the results of the project will influence, when and how. Policy actions have significant impact on migration flows and patterns. The focus has been almost completely on receiving countries but the policies of sending countries are critical as well. Our goal in this pilot was to identify key policy areas directly or indirectly related to emigration explore the range of policies implemented and design a methodology to translate the policies into empirically useable indices. We believe we have made significant progress and would like to extend it further to other countries. The main value will arise when the most restrictive practices and most development friendly practices will be identified and discussed in greater depth in our analysis. b. Indicate number of: 1) Bank policy documents; 2) Bank operations (e.g. DPLs, PRSCs, Investment Lending, and TAs); 3) government policy documents and (4) policy brief, that explicitly inspired by the findings of the research, and how this has been/will be achieved?) Number of policies in Bank policy documents (e.g. CPSs and CEMs) explicitly inspired by the findings of the research Number of Bank operations (e.g. DPLs, PRSCs, Investment Lending, and TAs) explicitly inspired by the findings of the research Number of government policy documents explicitly inspired by the findings of the research Number of policy brief 1 6. Capacity Building a. Describe whether and how the project enhanced local capacity building? We worked with local academics in sending countries in limited capacity in cases where we were stuck in deciphering and interpreting legal texts. b. Indicate the number of developing country researchers and institutions substantively engaged with KCP research for the entire duration of the project, Number of developing country researchers substantively engaged 2 Number of developing country institutions substantively engaged 0 Number of training provided 0 7. Dissemination (What dissemination activities have been conducted /planned to encourage knowledge sharing? What has been done /planned to reach policy makers or policy advisers) Number of conferences/events organized 0 Number of conferences/events the project s results were 2 presented at (in addition to the number of organized events) Others- please specify 4

5 This was a pilot project. We presented the preliminary results in two meetings with scholars from the IMPALA project. 8. Methodology and Data The key elements of the methodology were described above. Our exercise was mainly focused on qualitative research up until this point. The list of the variables collected and the country list is discussed in the paper in greater detail. The challenge has been codifying the policies and quantifying them. The next empirical step involves a gravity type model where actual migration patterns are linked with the policy measures to determine their relative impact. 9. Additional Resources Leveraged and Project Expenditures (please describe additional resources leveraged, and provide amount and briefly summarize the expenditures in the table below) Project Expenditures (USD `000)-Actual External Funds WB Funds Total KCP EFO Others BB-DEC BB-Others $30,000 (staff time) $30,000 Annex 1: Multimedia Please provide a list of multimedia materials (photos, videos, ppts) here with caption and credit information. Then submit materials as attachments along with this note. Annex 2: Geo-Reference 1 Georesults (beta) ( If you would like to provide content for Georesults, please provide the following information: (i) Locality of Project Activity (name of locality, longitude and latitude) (ii) Description of Local Development Activity 1 Georesults is an online space to view images, videos and results stories of World Bank projects. It allows you to easily orient yourself using maps to guide your navigation. 5