TY  - JOUR
AU  - Razin,Assaf
AU  - Sadka,Efraim
TI  - Welfare Migration: Is the Net Fiscal Burden a Good Measure of Its Economic Impact on the Welfare of the Native Born Population?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10682
PY  - 2004
Y2  - August 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10682
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10682.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Assaf Razin
Department of Economics
Cornell University
Uris 422
Ithaca, NY 14853
Tel: 607/255-9625
Fax: 607/255-2818
E-Mail: ar256@cornell.edu

Efraim Sadka
Tel Aviv University
Eitan Berglas School of Economics
P.O.B. 39040
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978, ISRAEL
E-Mail: sadka@post.tau.ac.il
AB  - Migration of young workers (as distinct from retirees), even when driven in by the generosity of the welfare state, slows down the trend of increasing dependency ratio. But, even though low-skill migration improves the dependency ratio, it nevertheless burdens the welfare state. Recent studies by Smith and Edmonston (1977), and Sinn et al (2003) comprehensively estimate the fiscal burden that low-skill migration imposes on the fiscal system. However an important message of this paper is that in an infinite-horizon set-up, one cannot fully grasp the implications of migration for the welfare state, just by looking at the net fiscal burden that migrants impose on the fiscal system. In an infinite-horizon, overlapping generations economy, this net burden, could change to net gain to the native born population.
ER  -