Ghosh Dastidar, Sayantan and Balasubramanyam, Vudayagi (2015) Impact of immigrants on the foreign trade of the UK. Working Paper. Lancaster University, Department of Economics, Lancaster.
Abstract
Much of the recent discussion on the impact of immigrants on the host economies relate to the costs they impose on the host country’s public finances and the labour market rather than their contribution to the growth of incomes, technology and trade. This paper analyses the contribution of immigrants into the UK to the exports of the country. The analysis suggests that immigrants make a significant contribution to the growth of exports of services from the UK. Exports of services account for more than a third of UK’s exports and the immigrants. The statistical analysis suggests that Whilst both the immigrants from the EU contribute to the growth of exports of services from the country the contribution of the immigrants from the Commonwealth is somewhat more than that of the EU immigrants mostly because of the recognised presence of the Commonwealth immigrants in professional and technical occupations in the services sector.