Posted on: 30 August 2010
A PhD student in TCD’s Economics Department, Ben Elsner, was recently awarded one of three Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) awards at the Annual Congress of the European Economic Association (EEA) for his paper Does Emigration Benefit the Stayers? The EU Enlargement as a Natural Experiment. Evidence from Lithuania. The winners, whose papers were selected from over 700 international applicants, were presented with their awards by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, EEA president Timothy Besley, and FEEM executive director Bernardo Bortolotti.
Migration impacts on both receiving and source countries however to date most research has focused its impact on the receiving countries. In his paper, Ben studies the effect of migration in the source country resulting from the eastern enlargement of the European Union in 2004. From 2004 to 2007, around 9% of the Lithuanian workforce emigrated to the UK and Ireland. The research finds that demographic and educational groups in which a larger share emigrated had a more positive wage trend. He concludes that emigration had a significant positive effect on the wages of those who stay. This effect is only significant for men, and the impact is greater for unmarried people. These are important pieces of evidence to evaluate welfare consequences of migration flows.
The 2010 FEEM Award ceremony took place on 24 August 2010 at the 25th EEA congress at the University of Glasgow.
The FEEM Awards are presented to the three best papers presented by young economists at the annual congress of the EEA. The awards are open to economists under 30 years of age and not more than three years from completing their PhD. A reward of €5000 is presented for each winning paper.
