Essays on the economics of immigration and birthplace diversity.

Summary This dissertation focuses on measuring and analyzing the effects of diversity related to the places (countries) of birth of a population. We show that "birthplace diversity" is a new dimension of population diversity, that it is conceptually and statistically distinct from ethnolinguistic or genetic diversity, and that, unlike the latter, it is positively correlated with long-term productivity. This effect is stronger for skilled immigrants in rich countries. We also show that the productive effect of diversity is larger for immigrants who are culturally close to the host country's natives - but not too close - and who come from richer countries. Again, let's look at the relationship between birthplace diversity and attitudes toward immigration. We use the World Values Survey for 72 countries and show that skilled natives increase their support for immigration when the diversity of skilled immigrants is high. The results are robust to the use of the European Social Survey. Finally, we analyze the relationship between birthplace diversity and attitudes toward redistribution in Europe. Using data from 29 European countries, we find that natives tend to reduce their support for redistribution policies when immigration is high. Moreover, this effect varies along the skill distribution of natives and converges to zero for the educated. It is furthermore robust to the use of more precise measures of skill levels in the labor market.