TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Bratti, Massimiliano
AU  - Benedictis, Luca De
AU  - Santoni, Gianluca
        TI  - On the Pro-Trade Effects of Immigrants
        PY  - 2012/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 6628
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp6628
        AB  - In this paper we investigate the causal effect of immigration on trade flows, using Italian panel data covering very small geographical units (NUTS-3). Exploiting the very favorable setup offered by Italy's features – the very high number of countries of origin of immigrants ('super-diversity'), the high heterogeneity of social and economic characteristics of Italian provinces coupled with the absence of cultural (e.g. language) or historical (colonial ties) attractors for immigration –, controlling for a wide set of fixed effects, and dealing with the possible distortions generated by the inappropriate choice of the areal unit, we find a positive association between immigrants' stocks and both export and import flows, in line with the past literature. However, using instrumental variables based on migration enclaves, we show that immigrants have a positive and significant effect on imports only.
        KW  - MAUP
KW  - business and social networks effects
KW  - transplanted-home bias effect
KW  - migration
KW  - trade
KW  - gravity model
KW  - super-diversity
        ER  -