The Elasticity of the Migrant Labour Supply: Evidence from Temporary Filipino Migrants
Résumé
The effect of immigration on host and origin countries is mediated by the way migrants take their
labour supply decisions. We propose a simple way of integrating the traditional random utility maximisation
model used to analyse location decisions with a classical labour demand function at destination. Our setup allows
us to estimate a general upper bound on the elasticity of the migrant labour supply that we take to the data using
the evolution of the numbers and wages of temporary overseas Filipino workers between 1992 and 2009 to
different destinations. We find that the migrant labour supply elasticity can be very large. Temporary migrants are
very reactive to economic conditions in their potential destinations.