تاثیر مهاجرت بر اقتصاد ژاپن: یک مدل شبیه سازی از چند کشور

To quantify the impacts of immigration and fiscal reconstruction on the Japanese economy, we present a dynamic computable general equilibrium OLG model with an overlapping generations structure. We use a total of 16 countries and regions, both including those that are industrialized, such as Japan, the US, and the EU, and developing countries, such as China, Brazil, the Philippines, and Peru. Our simulation results show that a permanent immigration flows of 150,000 will improve the Japanese economy and the welfare of current and future generations. On the other hand, a standalone increase in the consumption tax will not improve long-run welfare. The results indicate that substantially increased inflows of working-age immigrants would alleviate the need for future fiscal reform and also help to dramatically reduce the public pension burden on the working generations.

Industrialized countries are now facing unprecedented demographic changes which require extensive reform in fiscal systems, social security systems, and other related programs. However, due to conflicting interests between younger and older generations, reform will be politically difficult. As an example from pay-as-you-go pension systems, in order to improve the sustainability of the system, the government has the option of either reducing the benefits to the elderly or increasing the burden on the working generation. Obtaining agreement on reform by both generations is often too difficult for the government to achieve. Some have suggested that immigration may ease these tradeoffs. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan recently proposed an explicit immigration policy to receive 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years (200,000 annual immigrant flows), a number significantly greater than the annual 68,054 net flow in 2007. The proposed policy increases immigration in order to improve the welfare of both current and future generations. Moreover, some economic organizations, including the largest of them, Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), also insist that receiving immigrants will maintain the sustainability of the social security system and avert the expected decline in economic growth. To date, however, the economic effects of these proposals have not been rigorously studied. According to statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in 2008, the number of registered foreign nationals residing in Japan has increased every year since 1987 and totaled 2,152,973 as of the end of 2007 (see Fig. 1).1 Registered foreign nationals share of the total Japanese population has also increased every year to 1.69% in 2007. By place of origin, China exceeded the Korean peninsula for the first time in 2007, to become the top source of immigrants, followed by the Korean peninsula, Brazil, the Philippines, and Peru.

In this paper, we presented an dynamic general equilibrium OLG simulation model using 16 countries and regions in order to quantify the economic impacts of immigration to Japan. Our simulation results show that immigration will improve the Japanese economy compared to a no immigration scenario. Specifically, annual immigrant flows of 150,000 will dramatically increase the welfare of current and future generations. On the other hand, we cannot expect a significant long-run welfare improvement solely from increasing the consumption tax. If both fiscal sustainability and welfare improvements for current and future generations are requirements, we will need to promote a policy which includes both immigration and additional fiscal reform, i.e. increasing the consumption tax. Our study does not consider three points: (1) the additional costs of immigration such as the public education cost for immigrants’ children, (2) the difference between the impact of high skill and low skill immigrants, and (3) the scenario in which the birthrate of immigrants does not quickly decline to the level of the native population. As indicated earlier, other studies concluded the first two are not substantial. The last point would make immigration more favorable. These points require more research. Finally, increasing immigration is not a simple matter. Even when the population is aging and growth is stagnant, Japan will face enormous difficulties implementing immigration policy to support sustained economic growth. From the Japan’s social perspective, can immigration flows of this order of magnitude be socially tolerated over an extended duration? From the immigrant’s perspective, is the Japanese immigration opportunity attractive enough to accept the language and cultural barriers? And, finally, would such an immigration policy exacerbate the brain drain that is already harming out-migration countries, and therefore be met with strong international resistance? Japan, like other industrialized countries, must confront these difficult obstacles and solve the related issues in order to chart a productive and viable future for its immigrant and native-born population.