My primary research interest lies in Labor Economics and International Economics . I am also interested in Development Economics & Applied Econometrics.
Upcoming Conference
Action Research investigating freshwater stewardship and blue economy perspectives, 66th Annual Conference of the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR), Toronto, Ontario, May 8–12, 2023
Effect of Welfare Reform on Intergenerational Adult Outcome - Comparing Immigrant and Native Children, 57th Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association, Winnipeg, Manitoba, June 2-3, 2023
Working Paper
Immigration and Trade: Extensive vs Intensive Margins Across Skill and Product Quality (with Syed Al-Helal Uddin)
[Under Review]
This paper studies the impact of immigrants on the extensive and intensive margins of US exports. This analysis contributes to the literature by exploring variations in the effect across different skill groups of immigrants and product quality levels. Since a significant portion of immigrant populations suffers from poor skill transferability in the destination country, occupation in the destination country may contain more information about their role in enhancing trade. This paper proposes a more carefully defined measure of migration business networks based on the types of occupational scores and quantifies its impact on US export. Since the direction of causality in immigration-trade literature is less clearly established from earlier studies, this study instrumented the current migration stock with imputed flow and stock of migrants proportional to migrants' initial distribution to establish the causal relationship. For the empirical estimation, this study utilizes the US Census
Bureau state-level trade data provided by Schott (2004) and the IPUMS-America for immigration from a specific country to a particular state. Findings from this paper show that immigrant stock in the US has a significant effect on the US exports' extensive and intensive margins. The intensive margin impact is higher for high-quality products, while in the case of extensive margin, the effect is higher for low-quality products. We nd that in the case of both aggregate export and intensive margin, high-skilled immigrants trigger more high-quality trade compared to their counterparts and vice versa. However, with the recent surge in high-skilled immigrants coming from low-income countries, both skill groups show a stronger network effect for low-quality products on the extensive margin.
[Under Review]
This paper studies the impact of immigrants on the extensive and intensive margins of US exports. This analysis contributes to the literature by exploring variations in the effect across different skill groups of immigrants and product quality levels. Since a significant portion of immigrant populations suffers from poor skill transferability in the destination country, occupation in the destination country may contain more information about their role in enhancing trade. This paper proposes a more carefully defined measure of migration business networks based on the types of occupational scores and quantifies its impact on US export. Since the direction of causality in immigration-trade literature is less clearly established from earlier studies, this study instrumented the current migration stock with imputed flow and stock of migrants proportional to migrants' initial distribution to establish the causal relationship. For the empirical estimation, this study utilizes the US Census
Bureau state-level trade data provided by Schott (2004) and the IPUMS-America for immigration from a specific country to a particular state. Findings from this paper show that immigrant stock in the US has a significant effect on the US exports' extensive and intensive margins. The intensive margin impact is higher for high-quality products, while in the case of extensive margin, the effect is higher for low-quality products. We nd that in the case of both aggregate export and intensive margin, high-skilled immigrants trigger more high-quality trade compared to their counterparts and vice versa. However, with the recent surge in high-skilled immigrants coming from low-income countries, both skill groups show a stronger network effect for low-quality products on the extensive margin.
Effects of Information Channels on Trade Across Skill and Product Quality [Under Review]
Immigrants can foster host-country trade flows by using their information network. However, the heterogeneity in skill level and increasing diversification in terms of both origin and destination of the immigrants have added complexity to this issue. This paper examines the causal linkage between immigrant driven ethnic networks and bilateral trade across different skill groups of immigrants and quality levels of products. I extend the Eaton-Kortum (2002) model for disaggregated product qualities and incorporates ethnic network in the model to establish the theoretical framework. Using a panel dataset of 19 high-income OECD countries and 99 low-income countries over the period of 1990-2005 and a newly available export quality index, I find that higher level of human capital provides high-skilled migrants with opportunities to work in high quality export oriented industries and trigger more high quality trade than the low-skilled migrants. Low-skilled migrants also use their home country knowledge to their advantage and penetrate the low quality export-oriented industry to trigger more of low quality trade compared to their counterpart. In addition, this paper demonstrates a positive indirect effect of secondary ethnic networks of third party nature on trade, with the effect stronger for low quality products and more so through low-skilled migrants.
Immigrants can foster host-country trade flows by using their information network. However, the heterogeneity in skill level and increasing diversification in terms of both origin and destination of the immigrants have added complexity to this issue. This paper examines the causal linkage between immigrant driven ethnic networks and bilateral trade across different skill groups of immigrants and quality levels of products. I extend the Eaton-Kortum (2002) model for disaggregated product qualities and incorporates ethnic network in the model to establish the theoretical framework. Using a panel dataset of 19 high-income OECD countries and 99 low-income countries over the period of 1990-2005 and a newly available export quality index, I find that higher level of human capital provides high-skilled migrants with opportunities to work in high quality export oriented industries and trigger more high quality trade than the low-skilled migrants. Low-skilled migrants also use their home country knowledge to their advantage and penetrate the low quality export-oriented industry to trigger more of low quality trade compared to their counterpart. In addition, this paper demonstrates a positive indirect effect of secondary ethnic networks of third party nature on trade, with the effect stronger for low quality products and more so through low-skilled migrants.
Heterogeneity in Occupational Mobility: Evidence from the New Immigration Survey
This study explores the heterogeneity in the assimilation process of new immigrants in the US in terms of their occupational mobility. The analysis focuses on the variation in immigrants' performance across different immigrant groups. My research is unique in its ability to consider the occupational trajectory in a prospective manner from legal permanent residency forward. I study whether immigrants' initial occupational downgrading continues to be relevant as they remain in the United States. I find differential outcomes of occupational mobility and the speed of assimilation for different groups of immigrants. I nd immigrants working in an occupation with licensing requirements experience less probability of downgrading than those working in unregulated jobs after obtaining permanent residency. Contrary to the traditional belief, the study also finds that living within the home country community can hinder the assimilation process process in the long run. These findings are crucial to informing policy about which groups face the greatest obstacles and the speed at which they recover over time.
This study explores the heterogeneity in the assimilation process of new immigrants in the US in terms of their occupational mobility. The analysis focuses on the variation in immigrants' performance across different immigrant groups. My research is unique in its ability to consider the occupational trajectory in a prospective manner from legal permanent residency forward. I study whether immigrants' initial occupational downgrading continues to be relevant as they remain in the United States. I find differential outcomes of occupational mobility and the speed of assimilation for different groups of immigrants. I nd immigrants working in an occupation with licensing requirements experience less probability of downgrading than those working in unregulated jobs after obtaining permanent residency. Contrary to the traditional belief, the study also finds that living within the home country community can hinder the assimilation process process in the long run. These findings are crucial to informing policy about which groups face the greatest obstacles and the speed at which they recover over time.
Immigration and International Trade: Cross-country Evidence (with Syed Al-Helal Uddin) [Under Review]
This paper examines the impact of immigration on bilateral trade using a panel dataset of exports from 18 top migrant destinations (countries) to 69 top emigrant sources (countries) over five decades. Using various specifications of the gravity equation, we find that immigrants’ ethnic network contributes positively to exports, though the impact is much smaller than reported previously. Using a matching gravity framework, we explore the possibility of an indirect negative impact of immigration on bilateral trade. Though our estimation provides evidence of only a small direct positive impact of immigration on exports, we find the impact is much more important for a subset of countries. Our paper also provides evidence that immigration-trade links vary across product types.
This paper examines the impact of immigration on bilateral trade using a panel dataset of exports from 18 top migrant destinations (countries) to 69 top emigrant sources (countries) over five decades. Using various specifications of the gravity equation, we find that immigrants’ ethnic network contributes positively to exports, though the impact is much smaller than reported previously. Using a matching gravity framework, we explore the possibility of an indirect negative impact of immigration on bilateral trade. Though our estimation provides evidence of only a small direct positive impact of immigration on exports, we find the impact is much more important for a subset of countries. Our paper also provides evidence that immigration-trade links vary across product types.
Ethnic Networks, Risk Attitudes and Migration Decisions: Empirical Evidence from the United States (with Tamanna Rimi & Syed Al-Helal Uddin) [Under Review]
This paper examines the impact of risk attitudes on migration decisions. we use the “Two Sample Two-Stage Instrumental Variable (TS2SIV)” technique to measure relative risk aversion and its impact on migration. Using the probit model, we find that more risk averse people are less likely to migrate. The results also indicate that the impact of risk attitude on migration varies by other demographic characteristics such as age, sex etc. In addition, we test whether there is any network effect on migration and how risk attitudes vary with network effect. We consider two ethnic groups; Asian and Hispanic, and find that the size of one’s own ethnic group in a source location has significant effect on the migration decisions. In addition, we also find the evidence that risk attitudes vary with network effect.
This paper examines the impact of risk attitudes on migration decisions. we use the “Two Sample Two-Stage Instrumental Variable (TS2SIV)” technique to measure relative risk aversion and its impact on migration. Using the probit model, we find that more risk averse people are less likely to migrate. The results also indicate that the impact of risk attitude on migration varies by other demographic characteristics such as age, sex etc. In addition, we test whether there is any network effect on migration and how risk attitudes vary with network effect. We consider two ethnic groups; Asian and Hispanic, and find that the size of one’s own ethnic group in a source location has significant effect on the migration decisions. In addition, we also find the evidence that risk attitudes vary with network effect.
Work in Progress
Blue Economy and Freshwater Entrepreneurship - A Community-based Action Research (with Jody Rebek, Hannah Caicco, Alejandra Pascagasa)
Labour Mobility and Interprovincial Trade in Canada: Is There a Link? (with Nusrate Aziz and Gerry Mahar)
Effect of Welfare Reform on Intergenerational Adult Outcome - Comparing Immigrant and Native Children (with Syed Uddin)
Published
- Historical vs. Recent Migrants: A Study on the Canadian Provincial Trade-Migration Nexus (with Nusrate Aziz) (Forthcoming - IZA Journal of Development and Migration)
- Migration and Canadian Interprovincial Trade (with Nusrate Aziz and Gerry Mahar) GLO Discussion Paper, No. 341 [rev.]
- Human Capital and Economic Growth Nexus within Endogenous Growth Theory Framework: Case for Bangladesh (with Tamanna Rimi) Dhaka University Journal of Development Studies, Vol 1 & No 1 (2010).
- Export-Led Growth Hypothesis: An Empirical Investigation on Bangladesh (with Tamanna Rimi & Ishrat Kakoli) BIISS Journal, Vol 30 & No 3 (2010).
- Assessing Price Volatility of Selected Essential Commodities in Bangladesh (Research Associate for Selim Raihan, Bazlul Haque Khondker and Syed Al-Helal Uddin), A report prepared for the Ministry of Commerce, Government of Bangladesh & IFC (2011).
- Education Development Index for Bangladesh (Research Associate for Selim Raihan), A report prepared for the World Bank (2009).
- Estimating the Costs and Impact of Intimate Partner Violence in Developing Countries (Research Assistant for Selim Raihan), A report prepared for ICRW (2009).
- Global Financial Crisis: Implications for South Asia, A report prepared for Trade Insight, Vol 5 & No 1 (2009).