Migration aspirations and the perceptions of the political,economic and social environment in Africa

While much research has investigated how objective pull factors in the destination countries affect migration movements, and how subjective push factors affect migration aspirations, we know little about the interrelationship between subjective and objective factors. This paper therefore examines how people's perceptions of their political, economic and social structural environment affect their migration aspirations and to what extent these perceptions are determined by the objective situation in a country. Accounting for individual perceptions is important because individuals may be affected by structural factors to different degrees, and their knowledge of the objective situation may vary. Perceptions may also be affected by individuals' norms and values as well as people's different expectations. This study is based on data from Round 7 of the Afrobarometer survey, fielded between 2016 and 2018 in 34 African countries. Our findings show that positive perceptions of the structural environment are related to lower migration aspirations and that this relationship is only partly dependent on the objective situation in a country.     

Concurrent Seasonal Adjustment With Census X-11

Much investigative effort is being expended worldwide toward improving seasonally adjusted estimates from the Census X-11 program. Several recent investigations have resulted in a recommendation to obtain the most recent month's adjustment by applying X-11 to data through that month (concurrent adjustment), rather than relying on projected factors obtained from an earlier run. Although there are theoretical arguments supporting the applicaton of X-11 concurrently, a comprehensive study documenting the results of concurrent adjustment with X-11 on U.S. economic series has not previously been undertaken. This study evaluates the effect of applying X-11 concurrently to a set of selected Census Bureau economic time series. The accuracy of concurrent estimates, in terms of mean absolute deviations from historical estimates, is examined. The results obtained are generally favorable to concurrent adjustment.     

Make assurance double sure: combination of two disclosure limitation methods and estimation of general regression models

In order to guarantee confidentiality and privacy of firm-level data, statistical offices apply various disclosure limitation techniques. However, each anonymization technique has its protection limits such that the probability of disclosing the individual information for some observations is not minimized. To overcome this problem, we propose combining two separate disclosure limitation techniques, blanking and multiplication of independent noise, in order to protect the original dataset. The proposed approach yields a decrease in the probability of reidentifying/disclosing individual information and can be applied to linear and nonlinear regression models. We show how to combine the blanking method with the multiplicative measurement error method and how to estimate the model by combining the multiplicative Simulation-Extrapolation (M-SIMEX) approach from Nolte (, 2007) on the one side with the Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) approach going back to Horwitz and Thompson (J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 47:663–685, 1952) and on the other side with matching methods, as an alternative to IPW, like the semiparametric M-Estimator proposed by Flossmann (, 2007). Based on Monte Carlo simulations, we show that multiplicative measurement error combined with blanking as a masking procedure does not necessarily lead to a severe reduction in the estimation quality, provided that its effects on the data generating process are known.     

Regional migration governance – building block of global initiatives?

ABSTRACT

Regional institutions addressing mobility, asylum, migrant rights or migration control have proliferated all over the world and occupy an important space in recent UN initiatives to boost global cooperation on migration and refugees. Unlike Europe, where these different aspects of migration policy have come under the ambit of one institution, the European Union, regional initiatives in other parts of the world tend to emerge in different fora, with overlapping but incongruent memberships. Introducing a taxonomy of regional migration institutions, this article assesses regionalism's contribution to multilevel migration governance in two dimensions: the vertical interplay between regional and multilateral institutions on the one hand and the horizontal relationship between regional institutions on the other hand. The article concludes that regional (economic) integration frameworks like ASEAN, ECOWAS or MERCOSUR may prove fruitful anchors for more substantial regional migration governance.