This paper examines the factors affecting the employment decision of return migrants. We use data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Romania, and Tajikistan in which we can examine three categories of occupational status: salaried employment; self-employment without employees; and self-employment with employees. First we examine the choice between self-employment in general (merging the two variants of self-employment) and salaried employment, using binary logit regression. We find that male gender, savings, remittances, household size, and pre-migration experience in the country of origin in self-employment (either as an employer and as a self-employed person without employees) are shaping this decision. However, when we examine the choice between all three categories with the use of multinomial logit regression, we find considerable differences between self-employed individuals and employers. For example, the amount of remittances sent back while working as a migrant, the acquisition of further qualifications (in the form of certified skills, degree, or certificates), and the duration of migration increase the propensity for becoming an employer instead of becoming self-employed, while the amount of savings is not significant in this decision. Finally, we also find that the variables affecting the employment choice decision are different for males and females. Marital status and the duration of migration is statistically significant only for females while household size, remittances, and savings are statistically significant only for males.

Two major advances in the theory of the firm and (micro)economics more generally are arguably transaction costs economics (TCE) and the theory of firm resources. TCE has originally been applied to the theory of the firm, but found applications in virtually all fields of economic inquiry. The theory of firm resources currently spans much of the industrial organisation (IO) and strategic management literature. In some fields, e.g. diversification, it has already acquired dominant status. Despite significant progress in TCE there still seem to remain significant unresolved issues. Indeed we claim that transaction cost economics fail to supply convincing answers to the issues of the nature of the firm (why do firms exist?), and their essence (running a business). It offers a partial explanation of the “nature” and little on the “essence”. The resource value view complements the nature side and goes far beyond on the essence issue. It provides a fruitful starting point for an integrative framework. This, we suggest, should be based on the resource value perspective story and craft (dynamic) transaction costs in the ensuing evolutionary tale.

Businesspeople and politicians seem to be afraid that population reduction will be accompanied by economic recession. In this paper we examine the experience of some countries of various sizes in which population has been declining and observe how GDP, GDP per capita, unemployment rate, and labour force participation rate are evolving during the period that population is declining. Using the pooled mean group (PMG) estimation method, we find that population decline can go hand in hand with growing GDP and increasing per capita GDP, and at the same time the labour participation rate may increase and unemployment may fall.

The relationship between population growth and economic growth is examined. Evidence is provided on the direction of causality between population and GDP in five industrialized countries (US, UK, Germany, France, and Italy) for the periods 1820–1938 and 1950–2016. Using Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality tests and Sims causality test it was found that the direction of causality during the former period was from Population to GDP or bidirectional while for the latter period, it was from GDP to population. It is also shown that during the second period per capita GDP was almost double relative to the first period. We argue that the difference may be partly explained by the direction of causality between the two variables. In the 1820–1938 period, the direction of causality is probably due to the large family model that prevailed in that period that led to rapid population growth. For the 1950–2016 period it is probably the rapid economic growth that followed the Second World War and motivated large migration flows to the developed countries we examined.

This study examines the size and motivation for remittances of returned migrants, based on the survey data taken in six countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Romania and Tajikistan). In addition to the usual factors that are used in economic analysis to determine the size of remittances (i.e. income, marital status, family size, etc.) we use two additional ones, namely the use of remittances (material or human capital investment vs. consumption) and the identity of the decision-maker (migrant, spouse, parents, etc.). We find that remittances are higher when the decision-maker is the spouse or the migrant him/herself. Furthermore, remittances are higher when they are used for the education of children and adults; whereas they are lower when they are used for food and clothing or medical expenses. Given that the countries of origin cannot easily affect intra-family decisions, e.g. whether the spouse or children are left behind or who decides on how the money is spent, it seems difficult to draw concrete policy prescriptions. However, the findings about education expenses could lend some support for the provision of tax breaks or other benefits for migrants whose money is used for education purposes in the country of origin.