Research into fiscal impacts of migration to the UK economy

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is an independent, non-statutory, non-time limited, non-departmental public body that advises the government on migration issues.

In July 2017, the Government commissioned the MAC to advise on the economic and social impacts of the UK's exit from the European Union and also on how the UK's immigration system should be aligned with a modern industrial strategy.

We are commissioning research to improve the existing evidence base on the fiscal impact of migration on the UK economy. We are keen to encourage researchers to explore new and innovative areas of research; as well as extensions of the existing literature.

Information on the Government commission and other MAC work are available on our website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/migration-advisory-committee

Aim and Objectives

The aim of this research is to gain a better understanding of the fiscal impact of migration on the UK. The research should consider the impact of migration from inside and outside the EEA with a comparison made to UK nationals.

We welcome research which fills gaps in the evidence and knowledge that exists; to address and examine areas that have not been considered in great depth in the literature; or to enable an extension of previous work.

Much of the existing literature on the net fiscal contribution of migrants focuses on migrants as a whole or as relatively large groups (e.g. EEA, non-EEA). While we are interested in that, we are more interested in having estimates of the net fiscal contribution of individual migrants with specific characteristics e.g. for a specific level of earnings, of a certain age and household structure.

The MAC is seeking to commission research to provide the following:

• An analysis of the most important characteristics of a migrant that influence their net fiscal contribution.

• An analysis of whether there any reasons why the net fiscal contribution of a migrant and identical native would be different and to quantify, as far as possible, these differences.

• The successful contractor is expected to deliver an excel model that clearly shows the net fiscal contribution split by individual characteristics (EU/Non-EU, skills, earnings, household size, age, migration route etc) to be agreed with the MAC and the Secretariat at the inception meeting.

• The model should be clear about the assumptions made in providing a complete analysis of all the types of tax revenues and public expenditures that might accrue because of the presence of a migrant.

• The model outputs should be compared to published statistics and comparators and the overall fiscal impact of UK nationals. Any significant differences or divergences should be explained. Sensitivity analysis with varying assumptions should be included.

The model should be capable of being used to do the types of analysis as shown in the attached document.

Additional information: Full details of how to obtain an application form are contained in the attached document.