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The intensified international migration pressures of the recent decades prompted many developed countries to revise their immigration regulations and increase border controls. However, the development of these reforms as well as their effectiveness in actually managing new immigration flows remains poorly understood. The main reason is that migration regulations are hard to quantify, which has prevented the construction of a universal measure of migration policy. To fill this gap in the literature, we construct an indicator of the restrictiveness of immigration entry policy across countries as well as a more comprehensive indicator of migration policy that also accounts for staying requirements and regulations to foster integration. These indexes are then used to disentangle the factors determining the toughness of migration regulations. Our empirical framework combines elements from the median voter and interest group approach and accounts for cross-country correlation in migration ... AbstractThe intensified international migration pressures of the recent decades prompted many developed countries to revise their immigration regulations and increase border controls. However, the development of these reforms as well as their effectiveness in actually managing new immigration flows remains poorly understood. The main reason is that migration regulations are hard to quantify, which has prevented the construction of a universal measure of migration policy. To fill this gap in the literature, we construct an indicator of the restrictiveness of immigration entry policy across countries as well as a more comprehensive indicator of migration policy that also accounts for staying requirements and regulations to foster integration. These indexes are then used to disentangle the factors determining the toughness of migration regulations. Our empirical framework combines elements from the median voter and interest group approach and accounts for cross-country correlation in migration policies. We find strong evidence of spatial correlation in particular in entry restrictiveness, while the impact of economic determinants of migration policy remains much more modest.

The gravity model of international trade states that the volume of trade between two countries is proportional to their economic mass and a measure of their relative trade frictions. Perhaps because of its intuitive appeal, the gravity model has been the workhorse model of international trade for more than 50 years. While the initial empirical work using the gravity model lacked sound theoretical underpinnings, the theoretical developments have highlighted how a gravity-like specification can be derived from many models with varying assumptions about preferences, technology, and market structure. Along the strengthening of the theoretical roots of the gravity model, the way in which it is estimated has also evolved significantly since the start of the new millennium. Depending on the exact characteristics of regression, different estimation methods should be used to estimate the gravity model.

In this paper, we put forth an index of Inclusive Sustainable Transformation that captures the extent to which a country has developed a modern industry or services-based economy that at the same time protects the environment and is gender inclusive. This index distinguishes itself from other indicators that track the structural characteristics of the economy by ensuring that the comparisons between countries account for differences in the level of development, in line with New Structural Economics thinking. The index evaluates how well a country scores given its available resources. In addition, by addressing data availability problems using multiple imputation techniques, the index is able to compare performances on a wide range of topics for almost 200 countries over 25 years, including a large group of developing countries that are often left out. In addition to monitoring the progress made towards the establishment of an inclusive and environmentally friendly, modern economy, the index is a useful tool for policy makers and analysts. By decomposing the total score back into its components, it can help identify areas that require additional attention, as well as 'best practices' in countries at similar levels of development.

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