THE CAUSES AND THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR LITHUANIA

Abstract

During the last decade, Lithuania, as most other post-soviet countries, demonstrated severely high emigration rates. As a result, the process of emigration from the country is frequently analysed in empirical studies. Yet, there is a dearth of research on immigration in Lithuania, making it difficult to say anything about the effects. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap and to examine what exactly attracts immigrants in Lithuania and what is the impact that the immigration flows have on the Lithuanian economy. Two models describing the causes of immigration were constructed: one – for the situation before the financial crisis, another one – after it. In order to determine economic impact of immigration on Lithuanian economy some new information was developed, by checking how (if) the main economic indicators are influenced by the growing extent of immigration

Keywords

• immigration, repatriation, labor market, economic indicators, econometric model

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