ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes available information pertaining to labor emigration from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand to the Middle East to explore the validity of some major hypotheses concerning the economic impact of temporary labor export on developing countries. One of the perceived advantages of labor export is that it is an inexpensive and rapid method of alleviating unemployment. Indeed, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia officially view labor export as an employment creation policy. The effective implementation of labor-export policies may be beyond the administrative ability of a country. Whether this observation is applicable to the Southeast Asian labor-exporting countries is a question the author does not have sufficient information to answer. The chapter suggests that institutional features of the international contract labor market result in a disproportionate share of the gains from trade accruing to the labor-importing countries. The emigration of unemployed labor should confer at least a material gain upon the country of emigration.
