6th AIEAA Conference, Piacenza, 15-16 June 2017

Two key factors have recently contributed to place migration issues at the centre of the economic and political agenda. Firstly, the weaker economic prospects and the cuts in public spending due to the recession have increasingly contributed to make immigrants be perceived as competitors in the labour market and in the welfare state, rather than as a resource. Secondly, the refugee crisis, with the number of migrants seeking for asylum in Europe reaching a level not experienced since the mid-1990s, creates alarming tensions and un-coordinated reactions by the EU countries, revealing the fragility of EU institutions.

In the last decades, agriculture and rural areas have represented the main source of job opportunities for international migrants. Evidence of the key role played by migrant workers in keeping the sector competitive and resilient to the changes is solid.

Economic research on migration has gone well beyond the analysis of the impact of migrants on natives’ wages and employment. Economists have started to analyse the interaction between immigrants and natives, their degree of substitution and/or complementarities, and how native workers, firms and local economies react and adjust to labour supply shocks. Furthermore, there is a wide literature on the effects of migration on education, health and crime, as well as on the political effects of immigrants at origin and destination.

The relevance of these topics motivates the need to provide high quality studies also incorporating current knowledge from the economic literature to analyse the economics and politics of migration in rural areas. In this perspective, the sixth AIEAA Conference aims at providing a scientific contribution to these issues by expanding the knowledge base on the fundamental effects of migration, and by promoting a critical debate on the underlying theoretical and methodological issues and policy implications.

Specific issues to be addressed include:

• The effect of migrations on the agricultural labour market;
• The contribution of foreign workers to agriculture productivity growth;
• The effect of migration in rural areas;
• Farms’ adjustment to local labour supply shocks;
• Migration and poverty condition in the countries of origin;
• Migration and the changing patterns of food consumption;
• Migration, climate change and natural disasters;
• The trade effect of international migrations; 
• The political economy of migration policy;
• The political outcomes of international migrations;
• Migration and crime in rural areas.
• Migration, education and health

AIEAA welcomes the submission of contributions on the topics above. However, the submission of contributions on other agricultural and applied economics topics is encouraged as well.