ABSTRACT
The review of migration theories undertaken in Chapter 1 outlined two main approaches to the analysis of the causes of labour transfer: a rational choice approach that emphasises the role of incentives and wage differentials in making people move from one place to another, and a political economy approach that stresses the importance of structural change. Most studies on Palestinian employment in Israel, though, have rarely referred to migration theories, and if they did, they tended to adhere to a rational choice framework of analysis (Dweik 1988; Olmsted 1994; Kadri 1998; Sayre 1999). The majority have concentrated on analysing the beneficial and negative effects of Palestinian employment in Israel on domestic wages, employment creation and economic growth in the WBGS (Angrist 1992, 1995, 1996; Kleiman 1992; Fischelson 1992; Shaban 1993; World Bank 1993; Arnon et al. 1997; IMF 1999). Most of these studies have taken it for granted that the integration of a smaller Palestinian economy into a larger Israeli economy was bound to induce labour mobility, given the disparity of wage levels on the two sides of the Green Line.
