July 2000

IZA DP No. 169: Immigration Policies and their Impact: The Case of New Zealand and Australia

published in: Djajic, Slobodan (ed.), International Migration: Trends, Policies and Economic Impact, Routledge, 2001, 1-20

The paper provides an analysis of the recent immigration history of New Zealand and Australia. It starts with a description of the quantitative dimension of immigration: how many immigrants entered the two countries, and what was the contribution of external migration to population growth. Next, similarities and differences in the current immigration policies are studied. Finally, an attempt is made to evaluate policy outcomes using empirical evidence of immigrants arriving in the 1990s.