Skills, Immigration and Selective Policies

Abstract: This paper analyzes the decision process that leads destination countries to introduce selective immigration policies based on skills requirements. We show that in absence of policy implementation costs, preferences in destination countries are polarized between complete openness or complete closure. However, this result changes if we take into account policy implementation costs. In presence of enforcement costs, selective immigration policies consist in positive quotas both for skilled and unskilled workers. This result fits the current scenario. We also show that the resulting policy depends on the capital endowment of the median voter: the richer, the less restrictive the immigration policy. Moreover, under mild assumptions, the rich are more biased in favour of skilled immigration than the poor.