In this dissertation, I explore topics related to migration studies, with a focus on Chinese migration, as China has a long history of both domestic and international migration, with China having the third largest diaspora in the world. In the first chapter, I discuss how a lack of stable domestic investment opportunities spurs wealthy Chinese individuals to look abroad for investment opportunities, and show in their preferred investment tool, real estate, that their high demand pushes up local house prices. I go on to show that while prices are pushed up, most groups benefit, including home renters, due to a decrease in rental prices as a result of wealthy Chinese people renting out the houses they purchase. I argue that because only one group, renters seeking to become first-time home owners, are hurt by wealthy Chinese activity, that rents can be extracted from wealthy Chinese by local governments and be used to target assistance to these first-time home buyers. In the second chapter, I explore how precarious farmland soil conditions in rural China have left agricultural workers sensitive to the effects of land degradation and desertification, and how land degradation can have persistent effects on livelihood decisions such as the rural-urban migration decision. Using exogeneous variation from wind speeds, I show that desertification has persistent effects not only on soil arability but on labor decisions of rural households. In particular, I find that affected households are more likely to shift out of agriculture and into off-farm labor such as manufacturing or services. I find no evidence of an effect on total migration, although I note a small shift away from wage labor within-township towards out-of-township labor. In the third chapter, I look at migration from China to the US in the late 19th century during a period of heavy turmoil in the later Qing dynasty, and the subsequent nativist backlash to migrants that ultimately resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first national immigration ban on the basis of nationality. Using the Act as a natural experiment affecting the migration decisions of Chinese immigrants, I demonstrate that the Act was effective not only in keeping new Chinese immigrants from entering the US but also in incentivizing incumbent Chinese immigrants to return to China. However, this out-migration does not seem to have any beneficial effects on the labor outcomes of natives; rather, it seems that the outflow of Chinese immigrants hurt productivity. I do find that staying Chinese immigrants were more likely to be assimilated, suggesting that while economically unsuccessful, the Act did succeed in lessening cultural differences between Chinese immigrants and natives.

Creator

• Long, Joe Jiuyi

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-tpxb-nk91

Subject

• Labor economics

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_815406
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:15528

Date created

• 2021-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright