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Migration Creation and Diversion in the European Union: Is Central and Eastern Europe a ‘Natural’ Member of the Single Market for Labour?
Author(s) -
MARQUES HELENA
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5965.2009.02052.x
Subject(s) - immigration , trade creation , trade diversion , european union , order (exchange) , immigration policy , member states , natural experiment , single market , international economics , preference , economics , political science , demographic economics , trade barrier , international free trade agreement , statistics , mathematics , finance , law , microeconomics
This article applies the concepts of trade creation and trade diversion to immigration into the EU‐15 in order to investigate whether during 1986–2006 there were any significant preference effects in favour of the CEECs (central and eastern European countries) that make them ‘natural’ members of the EU single market for labour. If this hypothesis is true, there should have been strong migration creation but little migration diversion in the last 20 years. The results broadly support migration creation for the CEECs prior to their EU membership. At the same time, the evidence of diversion away from other world regions is mixed. The combined impact of a common language and established communities, compared to distance and a common border, may contribute to the preservation of migration channels from outside Europe. Within Europe, to be an EU outsider can have a negative impact on migration channels. Moreover, whilst liberal immigration policies increase immigration contemporaneously, restrictive immigration policies only show an impact with a two‐year lag.