#2017-001 The economic impact of East-West migration on the European Union
Martin Kahanec & Mariola Pytliková
This study contributes to the literature on destination-country
consequences of international migration with investigations on the
effects of immigration from new EU member states and Eastern Partnership
countries on the economies of old EU member states over the years
1995-2010. Using a rich international migration dataset and an empirical
model accounting for the endogeneity of migration flows we find positive
and significant effects of post-enlargement migration flows from new EU
member states on old member states' GDP, GDP per capita, and employment
rate and a negative effect on output per worker. We also find small, but
statistically significant negative effects of migration from Eastern
Partnership countries on receiving countries' GDP, GDP per capita,
employment rate, and capital stock, but a positive significant effect on
capital-to-labour ratio. These results mark an economic success of the
EU enlargements and EU's free movement of workers.
Keywords: EU enlargement, free mobility of workers, migration impacts,
European Single Market, east-west migration, Eastern Partnership
JEL Classification: J15, J61, J68
