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The purpose of this study is to identify, based on social network theory, the relationship between the direction of international migration (immigration/emigration) and the international movement of enterprises and their location.

A traditional gravity model and the Tobit estimation method are applied to three groups of countries from three different regions: Latin America, North America and the European Union. The study considers a period from 2001 to 2012.

The main results suggest that the international migration that goes from the European Union and North America to Latin America is related with the firms’ internationalization and their respective location.

Given that migration can be an important and reliable source of information, trust and knowledge, managers should see it as a “bridge” between the home and host countries, which, in turn, can increase their competitive advantage.

Governments can learn how migration and outward foreign direct investment interact. In addition, they could develop political frameworks to accurately and effectively manage international migration (immigration and emigration) and FDI in the best interests of the stakeholders.

This study extends the social network theory by suggesting that networks are not only related with firms’ expansion abroad but as well with their location. This statement could be generalizable as long as emigration/networks (ethnic ties) are considered the links between the home and the host country.

The purpose of this paper is to explore changes in the identity constructions of expatriate accompanying spouses, as experienced throughout their first year of adjustment to living in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Using interview data collected longitudinally throughout ten participants’ first year of living in Malaysia, changes observed in participants’ adjustment narratives over time form the basis of an analysis of successful and unsuccessful cases of identity adjustment.

An international relocation presents varying degrees of threat or challenge to expatriate spouses’ central identities. The degree of threat posed will predict the amount of redefinition of social, role, and personal identities required for successful adjustment across social, cultural, and personal domains. Men experienced threats to their career/worker identity, whereas women faced multiple threats to identities such as mother, wife/partner, child, and also their career/worker identity.

Results of this small-n research may not be generalisable, but do offer new interpretations of adjustment processes, including potential gender differences. The usefulness of longitudinal narrative inquiry for exploring experience of change is highlighted.

Conversations about identity constructions should be held with expatriate spouses in order to support relocation decision making, and to customise support programmes. Governments wanting to attract and retain foreign talent should consider policies that address employment options for spouses, which will allow for the continuation of central career identities.

Longitudinal case study analysis results in new interpretations of the adjustment experiences of expatriate spouses over time.

This paper aims to examine the remittance behavior of Guyanese immigrants living in three communities of New York City, USA to assess their remittance behavior and if these are motivated by altruism or the intent to return to live in Guyana. Over the last two decades, remittances accounted for approximately 17 percent of the GDP of the Guyanese economy and continue to grow. The bulk of these remittances are significant from its native sons and daughters residing in the USA.

This case study uses non-experimental survey research design with survey data collected from 300 participants living in New York, with 236 selected for analysis.

Guyanese living in New York City remit monies to Guyana because of a pure altruistic motive as well as believing that their contributions have a positive impact on the economic development of their nations regardless of their intention to return to Guyana. These findings support the altruistic model on remittance motivation.

The data gathered for this survey are restricted to three communities in the USA where Guyanese are significant in numbers, thus limiting generalizations and findings to other countries such as Canada, England, where there are significant enclaves of Guyanese immigrants.

New York-based Guyanese deem their remittances as contributing to the economic development of their country. This suggest that there may room for a coordinated policy on the part of the Government of Guyana to develop a coordinated plan to engage overseas-based Guyanese to remit more to help with Guyana economic development efforts.

This is the first study to survey Guyanese in their host countries to gather information on remittances motivation and the perceived impact of these remittances from the sender's perspective. The paper highlights the significant remittance contributions of US-based Guyanese and their net private flows to Guyana.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the predictability of remittances in individual developing countries. It achieves this objective by testing for mean reversion (i.e. stationarity) in the monthly remittance series reported to the World Bank by 21 developing countries.

Unit root tests on remittance time series are undertaken using three tests – the augmented Dickey-Fuller test, the Phillip-Peron test and the Kwiatkowshi, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin test. Stationarity of series in levels would indicate mean reversion and predictability of remittances.

The paper finds significant evidence of mean reversion and hence predictability in remittance inflows in 17 developing countries.

Remittance inflows, which have become an important source of external finance for many developing countries, are not random flows but a stable and predictable stream of financial flows.

Prior research has focused on volatility of remittances in comparison with other capital flows and then inferred stability from them having lower volatility. Using available monthly data, this paper is the first to directly test for mean reversion and hence predictability of remittances.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and unskilled immigrants for a panel of 23 manufacturing industries in Malaysia, spanning the period 1985-2009.

The paper establishes the causal FDI-immigrant links within a multivariate model framework for the period 2000-2009, and in a univariate context for 1985-1999 and 1985-2009.

Based on heterogeneous panel cointegration tests, there is a long-run equilibrium between inward FDI, unskilled migrant share, output growth, export intensity and market concentration. The long-run cointegrating coefficient based on the fully modified least squares estimator suggests the presence of unskilled migrant workers a significant location determinant for inward FDI for the first sub-period and the overall period. The results of the panel vector error correction model further attest to causal links between unskilled migrant worker presence and inward FDI in the short- and long run. Bidirectional causality between inward capital and labour flows is present in the first sub-period and unidirectional causal links from unskilled migrants to inward FDI is evident for the overall period.

The observed FDI-immigration (unskilled) links in manufacturing support the argument that inward FDI is induced by unskilled migration. The study reveals that unskilled immigration increases FDI inflows or rather “capital chases labour” in terms of international factor mobility.

This has profound implications for public policy as the government seeks to reduce its dependence on migrant workers. Policy coordination is therefore needed between regulating inflows of foreign capital and foreign labour so that implemented policies do not pull in different directions and undermine Malaysia’s attractiveness as a destination for FDI.

The large presence of unskilled migrants, an intrinsic characteristic (based on the new trade theory that includes factor endowments) of Malaysia, seems to be largely ignored when explaining FDI inflows to manufacturing, particularly so when the siting of MNCs in this sector have traditionally been in light scale manufacturing.

This paper examines the inter‐relationship between migration of persons and international trade in goods and services. Trade and immigration policies, their effects and inter‐dependence are examined from a variety of viewpoints across several disciplines, and an attempt is made to offer the outline of a synthesis. The relationship between trade and migration policies is of immediate relevance to policy‐makers. Unless such policies were coordinated, lawmakers might find that the desired effects of say, immigration policy might well be undone by independently chosen trade policy and conversely.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine which factors are important in determining the post-migration education among rural-urban migrants in Indonesia. Second, to investigate whether investing in post-migration education in the cities improves the labour market performances of rural-urban migrants. The labour market performances are measured by the occupational (work) statuses and earnings (wages) at destination.

The determinants of post-migration education are estimated using a binary probit and ordinary least square, while a multinomial logit model and a two-step procedure of Lee’s selection-biased correction based on the multinomial logit are used to examine the effects of post-migration education on the labour market performances of migrants measured by occupational status and by wages. The main source of the data used in this study is the Rural-Urban Migration in China and Indonesia (RUMiCI) 2009-2011 survey conducted in the four largest recent migrant destination cities in Indonesia including Tangerang, Medan, Samarinda, and Makassar.

Post-migration education contributes significantly to the labour market performance in terms of work status and wages, compared to pre-migration education. In terms of work status, migrants with more post-migration education are more likely to be employed in the formal sector compared to migrants with less or no post-migration education. Relating to earnings, migrants with more post-migration education also tend to be paid more than those migrants with less or no post-migration education.

The role of post-migration education in the case of rural-urban migration particularly in developing countries is a relatively neglected area of research. One possible reason is because of the lack of data for rural-urban migration particularly in the case of developing countries. This study is taking advantage by using a new data set from RUMiCI focusing specifically on the rural-urban migrants in the four largest recent migrant destination cities in Indonesia including Tangerang, Medan, Samarinda, and Makassar.

The global migration and movement of talent plays an important role in the economic growth and competitiveness of many nations. In coming decades, it is anticipated that there will be increased competition between countries to attract the best and brightest. The World Economic Forum (2011) has recommended using nation branding strategies to attract talent. In response to this recommendation, the purpose of this paper is to propose a strategic framework and terminology for branding nations to attract highly skilled workers. Based on a review of the literature, it recommends five strategic vision drivers that can help countries brand themselves in an appealing and compelling way to talented professionals. This paper also recommends the term “relocation branding” to describe the practice of branding nations, regions and cities to attract talent.

This paper examines the literature on nation branding and talent mobility to propose a conceptual framework of five vision drivers for branding destinations to attract talent. It also discusses how these vision drivers can be used in the context of an overall branding initiative and campaign.

This paper finds that the determinants of talent mobility are complex and overlapping. Highly skilled temporary and permanent migrants have a broad range of concerns and interests when they voluntarily choose a country to live and work in. This paper argues that, given these complexities, a more tailored and multidimensional understanding of talent mobility is necessary to effectively craft a branding strategy that will appeal to the highly skilled. A clear vision, demonstrating an understanding of the challenges of moving between countries, has to be integrated into the brand from the outset.

This paper is one of the only in-depth studies of nation branding for the purpose of attracting temporary and permanent skilled migrants. The value of this paper is significant as it provides a framework for strategically creating and positioning nation brands to attract highly skilled workers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of illness-driven agriculture income shocks on remittance payments in Ghana using a nationally representative household pseudo-panel data set for 1991/1992, 1998/1999 and 2005/2006.

The two-stage least square instrumental variable technique is used. This is compared with the ordinary least squares estimator.

The author finds that households in Ghana use remittances to protect themselves from negative agriculture income shocks. The study further reveals that the protection is resilient in female-headed households.

The question of remittances as a safety net mechanism is interesting, but the limitation is the challenges involving the counterfactual setup in studying the effects of endogenous migration choices.

The study provides that, as far as microeconomic factors are concerned, remittances increase in times of negative agriculture income shocks attributed to illness in Ghana.

The finding points to the fact that remittance payments play an essential role as an informal safety net during illness-driven agriculture income shock especially for female-headed households in Ghana. This has an important implication for poverty reduction in Ghana.

It provides an empirical test of the claim that remittance flows buffer idiosyncratic shock with micro-level household data that incorporates both internal and international remittances. The paper introduces gender dimension into idiosyncratic shocks’ impact. Also, the data set makes it possible to provide a reliable set of agriculture income shock estimates.