June 20, 2019
CGD and RI Launch New Initiative to Expand Formal Labor Market Access for Refugees
On World Refugee Day this year, we are excited to note recent successes—in particular, the expansion of formal labor market access (FLMA) for refugees.
Views from the Center
September 25, 2017
Migration, Refugees, and Development: How Jordan and Moldova's Challenges Have Inspired Better Policy Planning and Innovation
The level of challenge faced by Jordan and Moldova on refugees and migration is remarkable: while Jordan has welcomed over a million Syrian refugees, Moldova has a migration outflow equivalent to a quarter of its population. Without the option of closing their borders, the scale of these movements not only puts the challenge for developed countries into context, but provides important insights on the importance of planning, and of innovation in policy.
May 30, 2017
What Economists Can Learn from the Mariel Boatlift, Part Two: Answering Questions about Our Research
Last week I blogged about a research discovery. An influential study had found that a 1980 wave of Cuban refugees into Miami, known as the Mariel Boatlift, had caused the wages of workers there to fall dramatically. In a new paper co-released by CGD and the National Bureau of Economic Research, my co-author and I revealed that large shifts in the racial composition of the underlying survey data could explain most or all of the same fall in wages. The author of the previous study, George Borjas, raised two substantive questions about our research, which I answer briefly in this post.
May 22, 2017
What the Mariel Boatlift of Cuban Refugees Can Teach Us about the Economics of Immigration: An Explainer and a Revelation
Do immigrants from poor countries hurt native workers? A study by an influential immigration economist at Harvard University recently found that a famous flood of Cuban immigrants into Miami dramatically reduced the wages of native workers. But there’s a problem. The Borjas study had a critical flaw that makes the finding spurious.
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