Migration and economic development: a computable general equilibrium approach to the Moroccan case.

Summary The growing interest of economists in South-North migration has given the South the status of emigration country and the North the status of immigration country. However, when one looks closely at the data, one finds that South-South migration is as important as South-North migration. The scale of South-South migration has made some developing countries into countries of origin, transit, and destination. As for the impact on the labor market, two contradictory effects can be observed: on the one hand, immigration as well as migration between regions within the country increases the pressure on the local labor market and subsequently the incentive to migrate. On the other hand, emigration can be used either to increase wages or to reduce unemployment in the regions of origin, thereby enhancing internal migration as well as immigration. While most economists have particularly neglected this aspect, this thesis seeks, first, to illustrate the interdependence between these different migration flows. It concludes that the impact of migration on the labor market in the country of origin should be carefully analyzed by taking into account the entry and exit of workers. This thesis also focuses on the investment of remittances in the real estate sector and concludes that channeling remittances into productive sectors does not have a positive impact on the economy when the real estate sector is highly integrated into the economy. It also concludes that it is in the interest of the Moroccan economy to pursue trade liberalization efforts to reduce migration flows.