"Une analyse du discours de l'État portant sur l'immigration, l'intégration et la citoyenneté ou quand le majoritaire parle de lui-même"

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Foreign direct investment via M&A and domestic entrepreneurship:blessing or curse?

There are conflicting predictions in the literature about the relationship between FDI and entrepreneurship. This paper explores how foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, measured by lagged cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), affect entrepreneurial entry in the host economy. We have constructed a micro-panel of more than two thousand individuals in each of seventy countries, 2000–2009, linked to FDI by matching sectors. We find the relationship between FDI inflows and domestic entrepreneurship to be negative across all economies. This negative effect is much more pronounced in developed than developing economies and is also identified within industries, notably in manufacturing. Policies to encourage FDI via M&A need to consider how to counteract the prevailing adverse effect on domestic entrepreneurship.

Investing in the Homeland: Foreign Assets and Patterns of Immigrant Economic Incorporation

This dissertation consists of three separate studies that examine patterns of immigrant incorporation in the United States. The first study tests competing hypotheses derived from conflicting theoretical frameworks−transnational perspective and cross-national framework− to determine whether transnational engagement and incorporation are concurrent processes among Chinese, Indian, and Mexican immigrants. This study measures transnational engagement and incorporation as home and home country asset ownership using multi-panel, nationally representative data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS) collected in 2003 and 2007. Results support a cross-border framework and indicate that transnational asset ownership decreases among all immigrant groups, while U.S. asset ownership increases. Findings from this study also indicate that due to disadvantaged pre-migration SES and low human capital, Mexican immigrants are less likely than other immigrants to own home country assets during the year after receiving their green card.

The second study examines the doubly disadvantaged position of elderly immigrants in the U.S. wealth distribution by applying the life course perspective to the dominance-differentiation theory of immigrant wealth stratification. I analyze elderly immigrant wealth in respect to U.S.-born seniors and younger immigrant cohorts using two data sets: the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the New Immigrant Survey (NIS). The Survey of Income and Program Participation (2001 to 2005) is a nationally representative survey of U.S. households. The first series of analyses reveals a significant wealth gap between U.S.- and foreign-born seniors which is most pronounced among the wealthiest households in my sample; however, U.S. tenure explains much of this difference. The second series of analyses suggests that elderly immigrants experience greater barriers to incorporation compared to their younger counterparts.

In the third study, I apply a transnational lens to the forms-of-capital and opportunity structure models of entrepreneurship in order to analyze the role of foreign resources in immigrant business start-ups. I propose that home country property use represents financial, social, and class resources that facilitate immigrant entrepreneurship. I test my hypotheses using survey data on Latin American immigrants from the Comparative Immigrant Entrepreneurship Project. Findings from these analyses suggest that home country asset ownership provides financial and social capital that is related to an increased likelihood of immigrant entrepreneurship.

Dealing with Immigration in the Context of EU Enlargement: the Case of Transitional Provisions

This analysis addresses the issue of immigration in the context of the European Union enlargement. Focusing on the use of transitional provisions, it attempts to explain why and when EU leaders give workers from new member countries access to their labor market. Building on the observation that EU leaders seem not to use provisions in the spirit of the law, I gauge the importance of domestic political stakes in the use of those provisions. The empirical results suggest that although EU leaders implement and repeal provisions based on economic circumstances, political factors do intervene in the decision-making process. However, it remains uncertain whether those political factors are institutional or purely electoral.

University Teaching of entrepreneurship: a practitioner's analysis

This is a practitioner doctorate aimed at both Universities about to introduce Entrepreneurship as a subject and practitioners who may be turning to teaching what they know building on their business experience. In this Portfolio the transition from Entrepreneur to Lecturer in Entrepreneurship is explored and several approaches were used to support the transition. A Professional Development Memoir offers a review of the life of an entrepreneur through the lens of Meaning Making Systems in order to bring clarity to the theories used by the Entrepreneur implicitly in his practice. Reflecting on these theories offers insight as to how the entrepreneur perceived and acted on market opportunities. Imparting some of the knowledge accumulated from practice is one goal in teaching. Economics and pedagogical theories were identified, researched and applied to inform the structure, design and delivery of a module in Entrepreneurship within a post graduate programme that focussed on business practice. Theories of Entrepreneurship grounded in Economics indicate the importance of this business function within the broad Economic System for economic development. The role of theory is to offer students ways of organising how they think about entrepreneurship. Gardner’s Teaching for Understanding framework is used to bring structure to the development of the module. Several leading exemplars on the teaching of Entrepreneurship are attended to offer a context both for the content of the Module and its subsequent implementation within a framework of best practice in the teaching of Entrepreneurship. The practical running of a business by the students as a central element of the Module provided a deep and valuable learning experience allowing them to experience Entrepreneurship in a real way for themselves.

"Une analyse du discours de l'État portant sur l'immigration, l'intégration et la citoyenneté ou quand le majoritaire parle de lui-même"

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Essays on Economics of Entrepreneurship

This dissertation examines three important issues. The first issue is about the human capital investment and entrepreneurship as a career choice. The standard human capital theory shows that firms (employees) never invest in general (firm-specific) human capital of the employee as they do not extract any return from it. However, when entrepreneurship is introduced as a career option for an innovative employee, both firm’s and employee’s human capital investments change. Employee starts investing in his firm-specific human capital to increase the probability to innovate (and to become an entrepreneur). However, the firm uses general human capital investment to reduce the risk of employee’s departure. The second issue is regarding the factors motivating entry regulations reforms and the possible nonlinear effects of entry regulation reforms. The current literature and the policy recommendations assume that these reforms have linear effects on entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the anecdotal evidence shows that the outcomes of such reforms vary greatly from country to country. To investigate this issue, I collect a sample data on entry regulations and firm creation from World Bank. The empirical analysis indicates that the effect of entry regulation reforms depends on the pre-reform level of bureaucracy in the country. More specifically, while low-bureaucracy countries benefit from entry regulation reforms, high-bureaucracy countries do not benefit. Moreover, the probability of making a reform increases if the country has reformist neighbors, cumbersome entry regulations, high unemployment rate, or low corruption level. The last issue is related to the individual and joint effects of bureaucracy and corruption on different types of entrepreneurs. The current literature investigates these effects only on unified measures of entrepreneurship. However, entrepreneurs are very different in many senses. To address this issue, I collect the necessity-based and opportunity-based entrepreneurship data from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The empirical analysis yield two important results: First, bureaucracy has a direct negative (positive) effect on necessity-based (opportunity-based) entrepreneurs. Second, corruption mitigates the effect of bureaucracy for both groups of entrepreneurs. All three chapters offer useful insights and important implications to academics and policymakers.

Immigrant Earnings : Age at Immigration Matters (Working Paper 20)

A correlation between age at immigration and earnings is observed in Canadian census data. The evidence supports three underlying sources of the effect; first, work experience in the source country yields virtually no return in the host country; second, the return to education varies with age at immigration, and, finally, an “acculturation” effect is observed for immigrants who are visible minorities or whose mother tongue is not English. Further, it is found that educational attainment, and relatedly earnings, vary systematically across age at immigration with those arriving around age 15 to 18 obtaining fewer years of education. JEL codes: J61, J31.

Return Migration in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian population: motivations, strategies and discourses

This article analyses the motivations for return migration among the Ecuadorians and Bolivians who, after living in Spain, returned to their countries of origin during the economic crisis that started in 2008. From the analysis of 22 interviews in-depth which took place in Ecuador and 38 in Bolivia to women, men and young people from migrant families, this decision-making process is shown to be embedded into a gendered dynamics of relationships. Particular detail is given to affective and economic elements that had an influence on the decision to return, as well as to the strategies deployed to project their readjustment back in origin. Males and females occupy differential positions within the family, work and social circle, their expectations being built in a gendered manner. Despite the fact migration has brought women greater economic power within the family group, their reintegration upon return redefines their role as main managers in the household and the dynamics that allow their social reproduction. Men, for their part, aspire to refresh their role as providers in spite of their frail labour position upon return. Social mobility for females is passed on through generations by a strong investment on education for their daughters and sons, while for males this mobility revolves around setting up family businesses and around their demonstrative abilities.

Migrant domestic workers, vulnerability and the law: immigration and employment laws in Cyprus and Spain

The intersection of gender, welfare and immigration regimes has been one of the main focus of a rich scholarship on paid domestic work in Europe. This article brings into the discussion the nexus of employment and immigration law regimes to reflect on the role of legal regulation in structuring and reducing the vulnerability of domestic workers. I analyse this nexus by looking at the cases of Cyprus and Spain, two states falling under the cluster of Southern Mediterranean welfare regimes, that share certain characteristics in terms of immigration regimes, but have substantially different employment law regulation models. The first part sketches the debate on the employment law regulation of domestic work. The second part starts by giving an overview of the immigration regimes of Cyprus and Spain in relation to migrant domestic workers and then proceeds to analyse the two countries’ models and substance of employment law regulation in domestic work. The comparison of these two divergent approaches informs the debate on how the legal regulation of domestic work should be best structured. In Spain there have been recent dynamic legislative changes in the employment law regulation of domestic work. The final part of the article traces these changes and reflects on why such processes have not taken place in Cyprus.

Immigration in Spain: Integration with Feet of Clay?

The aim of the paper is to analyze the impact of the economic crisis on the integration of the immigrant population in Spain. The Spanish case is singular because during the years of intense immigration achieved a remarkable degree of socio-cultural integration. The paper argues that such integration it has been the result of the confluence of exceptional factors rather than the result of the policy making. From a mixed methodology approach, it shows that, during the period of expansion, two factors of the immigration contribute to their coexistence with native population: finding job and access to public services. But the economic crisis, with its impact in terms of job losses and austerity policies, expose the weaknesses of the Spanish model of integration.

Immigration and the demand for life insurance: evidence from Canada, 1911

This article analyses the determinants of the demand for life insurance using sample data from the 1911 Census of Canada. We find that immigrants' demand for life insurance was on average around 13 percentage points lower than that of native-born Canadians, with the effect varying by province of settlement. We interpret these findings as evidence suggesting a greater appetite for risk among self-selecting immigrants relative to native-born Canadians. We also uncover evidence of a slow assimilation of immigrants in terms of life insurance holdings, slower indeed than the process of assimilation in terms of earnings.

Litterature de l'immigration et temoignage : Proposition de traduction de deux chapitres du roman "solo la luna ci ha visti passare" de Francesca Ghirardelli

Il presente elaborato ha l’obiettivo di analizzare il fenomeno dell’immigrazione, soprattutto quella clandestina, attraverso una proposta di traduzione verso il francese del romanzo « Solo la luna ci ha visti passare », pubblicato dalla scrittrice italiana Francesca Ghirardelli nel maggio 2016. Il romanzo è la testimonianza di una ragazzina curda-siriana che, tra luglio e agosto 2016, ha intrapreso un lungo viaggio in camion dalla Siria all’Europa passando per la costa balcanica. Il presente elaborato è suddiviso in tre capitoli. Il primo capitolo è incentrato sulla presentazione del romanzo « Solo la luna ci ha visti passare » dal punto di vista contenutistico e stilistico. Inoltre, sarà inserita la trascrizione, tradotta in francese, di un’intervista radiofonica con l’autrice Francesca Ghirardelli. Nel secondo capitolo viene proposta la traduzione del capitolo II e di una parte del capitolo III del romanzo in questione, seguita da un commento volto a ragionare sulle difficoltà riscontrate e le tecniche impiegate durante il processo traduttivo. Infine, nell’ultimo capito sarà illustrata la storia dell’immigrazione in Italia e in Francia e verrà analizzata l’influenza di questo fenomeno sulle letterature di entrambi i paesi.

La consommation halal à l'épreuve de l'immigration : cas de la deuxième génération maghrébine en France

«Halal/ » : une prescription de la religion musulmane qui circonscrit ce qui est permis, mais surtout un marché en croissance exponentielle. Le marché du halal pèse près de 700 milliards de dollars de chiffre d’affaires annuel et intéresse 1,6 milliard de musulmans dans le monde (Bel Hadj, 2015). Entre 2014 et 2015, les dépenses alimentaires du monde musulman ont affiché une progression de 4,3% en atteignant 1158 milliards de dollars soit 16,7% des dépenses alimentaires de la planète . Ces dépenses dépasseront la barre symbolique des 2000 milliards de dollars d’ici 2025. En France, le marché est en constante croissance à deux chiffres (entre 17 à 20 % les cinq dernières années), il est estimé à 5,5 et 7 milliards d’euros par an .Face à l’évidence de l’ampleur et du potentiel du marché du halal dans le monde et en particulier en France, plusieurs tentatives d’élucidation du phénomène sont avancées. En observant de près les pratiques marketing, nous constatons un «déni» total des origines religieuses et une préférence pour la carte du purement ethnique. La recherche, quant à elle, reste fragmentée. Si dans certaines disciplines on préfère encore parler d’un phénomène purement religieux, d’autres tiennent encore à l’étiquette communautaire. Ce flou persiste avec la vision monochrome et surtout cloisonnée entre plusieurs domaines d’études. La recherche dans la discipline du comportement du consommateur, qu’elle s’intéresse à l’essence de la proscription religieuse ou qu’elle se focalise sur la dimension ethnique, n’investigue pas automatiquement toutes les raisons pour lesquelles un individu respecte les règles du halal. La sociologie semble être la discipline qui a su arpenter les chemins les plus sinueux pour tenter d’apporter plus de compréhension à ce phénomène qui ne cesse de prendre de l’envergure et d’attirer les controverses les plus acerbes. C’est aussi la discipline qui a su capturer l’évolution des générations d’immigrants et a su exprimer la complexité de l’expression alimentaire de la deuxième génération mais aussi le défi que relève la communauté maghrébine à cohabiter avec la stigmatisation. Cette deuxième génération d’«immigrants» maghrébins qui n’ont jamais immigré, décide de «manger pour croire » en «se nourrissant de nostalgie » pour une culture qu’ils vivent par procuration à défaut de pouvoir s’intégrer entièrement dans la société française. Il devenait pour nous fondamental de considérer cette pratique alimentaire dans une perspective plus large qui favorise l’élan de l’engagement et de la revendication identitaire affichée. Dans cette voie, et dans la ligne directrice des travaux en sociologie qui ont été notre principale inspiration tout au long de ce travail, notre projet s’inscrit dans une volonté de saisir cette consommation à travers un héritage à la fois culturel, migratoire, familial et une trajectoire propre à chaque individu. Pour arriver à cette fin, nous avons privilégié l’enquête par questionnaire (432 observations) auprès des immigrants de deuxième génération habitant la région parisienne. Pour l’analyse, nous avons opté pour les méthodes des équations structurelles, avec l’ambition de démêler la toile d’araignée à la fois culturelle, sociale et personnelle sans s’enliser dans les a priori, les polémiques et les partis pris. Pour ce faire, nous avons, tout au long de ce travail abordé le halal sous l’angle d’un fait religieux comportant de multiples facettes, à la fois collectives et individuelles, conservatrices et modernistes, désintéressées ou engagées. Nos résultats confirment cette relation de conviction étroite avec la consommation halal. Outre la religion, construit de prédilection des principales recherches en comportement du consommateur, le présent travail doctoral confirme les apports de certaines valeurs (sécurité, stimulation/hédonisme) de l’acculturation mais aussi de la socialisation alimentaire. Cette dernière a cristallisé l’impact de la composante comportementale de l’apprentissage sur la consommation, mais a surtout révélé l’impact de la composante affective sur cet apprentissage. Du côté de l’acculturation, seul l’attachement à la culture hôte a prouvé son influence négative sur la consommation alimentaire halal. Les polémiques récurrentes qui collent au halal nous ont également suggéré la voie de la confiance en la certification, qui a elle aussi confirmé qu’il s’agit désormais d’un phénomène de conscience, de revendication mais aussi d’un engagement responsable du consommateur pour harmoniser ce qu’il incorpore avec ce qu’il est.