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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Ambrosius, Christian (Freie Universität Berlin); Quigua, Juliana (University of Oxford); Velasquez, Andrea (University of Colorado Denver) |
| Abstract: | By 2020, one in four Salvadorans lived abroad, with 88 percent residing in the United States. The remittances to GDP ratio was about 25 percent, highlighting the country’s dependence on migration. This paper examines the effects of a major U.S. immigration enforcement program—Secure Communities—on migration and labor market outcomes in El Salvador. Using a shift-share identification strategy, we find that larger exposure to the program decreases the likelihood that a household includes a migrant, consistent with increased forced returns. These effects lead to lower income among male workers, particularly low-educated, informal workers, and those in agriculture. We also document a decline in the probability of receiving remittances. The findings suggest that a closure of migration opportunities can increase labor market competition and strain local economies. Effects are most pronounced in municipalities with limited absorptive capacity, underscoring the unintended consequences that U.S. immigration enforcement generates abroad. |
| Keywords: | labor markets, remittances, immigration policies, El Salvador |
| JEL: | F22 F24 N16 R23 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18135 |
| By: | Balsimelli Ghelli, Bianca; Gallo, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | Acquiring citizenship is associated with better economic and social opportunities for immigrants. This paper examines how, in a country with a large fraction of migrants, marriage decisions respond to a change in the legal status of foreign residents. The variation in the relationship between citizenship status and the propensity for mixed marriages could be influenced by the dominance of either the assimilation hypothesis or the status exchange hypothesis. Using individual-level data from the populated municipality of Modena, Emilia- Romagna (Italy), we find that the assimilation hypothesis prevails: the more immigrants integrate into host countries, the more likely they are to marry natives. Specifically, our results show that acquiring citizenship not only increases the likelihood of marriage but also significantly boosts the formation of mixed couples. |
| Keywords: | Citizenship, intermarriage, foreign population, administrative data |
| JEL: | J12 J15 O15 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1669 |
| By: | Assaf Razin |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the two-way relationship between international migration and political regime change, highlighting a feedback loop in which political shifts shape migration flows, while migration itself reshapes political trajectories. Relying on a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) framework and a dataset combining migration flows, regime quality indicators (CHRI), and measures of international integration, we identify three central results. First, substantial immigration into politically fragile democracies undermines institutional quality. The 2015 Syrian shock provides a particularly valuable exogenous case: a sudden, large-scale refugee inflow that bypassed domestic policy controls and provoked sharp political responses, allowing for clearer identification of immigration’s institutional effects. Second, democratic decline increases emigration, draining human capital and further weakening prospects for democratic recovery. Third, international integration—most notably through EU accession—conditions these dynamics, amplifying or dampening the outflow response to political change. Taken together, these findings show that migration is not merely a symptom of political instability but also a driver of institutional transformation, simultaneously reinforcing and accelerating regime shifts toward illiberalism. |
| JEL: | F22 J1 P0 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34242 |
| By: | Hajare El Hadri (Marie and Louis Pasteur University, Orléans University); Réda Marakbi (Artois University, University of Lille) |
| Abstract: | This study develops a new theoretical framework to explain how secularity influences migration aspirations in the Arab world. We argue that secular individuals incur significant psychological costs when living in highly religious societies. This value incongruence pushes them to seek out more secular environments, whereas strongly religious individuals face higher cultural costs of moving and thus prefer to stay. We derive testable hypotheses on how individual secularity and socio-political secularity act as push–pull factors for different communities and migration destinations. We then test these hypotheses using 2018–2019 Arab Barometer data from eleven MENA countries. We construct original indices for individual secularity and socio-political secularity via multiple correspondence analysis. Consistent with our theory, probit and instrumental- variable probit estimates show that secular individuals are significantly more likely to express intentions to emigrate – particularly to highly secular Western countries. Among Muslim majority populations, both individual and socio-political secularity increase the desire to migrate, whereas among Christian minorities only individual secularity has this effect. Moreover, secularity drives regular migration aspirations, with no measurable im- pact on irregular migration except in the case of religiously unaffiliated “nones, †who exhibit a heightened willingness to migrate by any means. These findings contribute to the migration literature by emphasizing the substantial, yet previously underexplored, influence of secular beliefs and practices on migratory behavior in the Arab context. |
| Keywords: | Arabworld, migration, religiosity, secularity |
| JEL: | F J |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inf:wpaper:2025.11 |
| By: | Gabriel Agostini; Rachel Young; Maria D. Fitzpatrick; Nikhil Garg; Emma J. Pierson |
| Abstract: | Fine-grained migration data illuminate important demographic, environmental, and health phenomena. However, migration datasets within the United States remain lacking: publicly available Census data are neither spatially nor temporally granular, and proprietary data have higher resolution but demographic and other biases. To address these limitations, we develop a scalable iterative-proportional-fitting based method that reconciles high-resolution but biased proprietary data with low-resolution but more reliable Census data. We apply this method to produce MIGRATE, a dataset of annual migration matrices from 2010-2019 that captures flows between 47.4 billion pairs of Census Block Groups — about four thousand times more granular than publicly available data. These estimates are highly correlated with external ground-truth datasets, and improve accuracy and reduce bias relative to raw proprietary data. We use MIGRATE to analyze both national and local migration patterns. Nationally, we document temporal and demographic variation in homophily, upward mobility, and moving distance: for example, we find that people are increasingly likely to move to top-income-quartile CBGs and identify racial disparities in upward mobility. We also show that MIGRATE can illuminate important local migration patterns, including out-migration in response to California wildfires, that are invisible in coarser previous datasets. We publicly release MIGRATE to provide a resource for migration research in the social, environmental, and health sciences. |
| JEL: | J19 R2 R23 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34263 |
| By: | Jens Friedmann; Britta Glennon; Exequiel Hernandez |
| Abstract: | We examine how firms respond to talent scarcity caused by restrictive immigration policies. We argue that when firms cannot build capabilities internally through hiring, they alter their boundaries by engaging in corporate acquisitions to make up for the foregone talent and capabilities. Using data on 3, 861 U.S. firms and their use of the H-1B visa program (2001-2020), we leverage two exogenous shocks—the 2004 H-1B cap reduction and the 2007-2008 visa lottery—and find causal evidence that firms make more acquisitions as their exposure to immigration restrictions rises. This effect is stronger for deals with purposes related to the skills of the foregone talent, for small acquisitions, for domestic targets, and for targets in places with higher concentrations of skilled workers. |
| JEL: | F22 G34 J24 J61 L2 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34248 |
| By: | Givens, Terri |
| Abstract: | Settler countries have become what they are through land theft, genocide, oppression of Indigenous People, and enslavement. Those who remain, including African descendants and Indigenous, continue to be seen as unable to attain the education or class status that would give them access to the “fruits of modernity” and are thus excluded from the opportunity to become equal citizens. What is critically important to our understanding of these processes is that they are not limited to “settler” societies like the US, Canada and Australia. Both settler colonial and European countries have histories of dehumanizing those who would come to their countries. The underlying question that I’m trying to address in this article is, what are the key factors driving the development of countries into nation-states with their current day immigration policies, and how those developments are impacted by historical processes of racialization. Theories that try to explain global migration flows often focus on South to North or South-South migration – however, a more global approach needs to include North-South migration that has impacted the development of countries throughout the Western hemisphere (and beyond). |
| Date: | 2025–09–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vtfxm_v1 |
| By: | María Padilla-Romo; Cecilia Peluffo |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effects of moving away from violent environments into safer areas on migrants' academic achievement in the context of the Mexican war on drugs. Using student location choices across space and over time, we recover individual-level migration paths for elementary school students across all municipalities in Mexico. We find that students who were induced to leave violent areas due to increased violence experience academic gains after relocating to safer areas. Students who migrated from municipalities in the 90th percentile of the violence distribution to municipalities in the 10th percentile experienced improvements of 5.3 percent of a standard deviation in their test scores two years after they migrated. These results appear to be explained by increases in school attendance and improvements in the learning environment after they moved. |
| JEL: | I24 I25 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34270 |
| By: | Zohal Hessami; Sebastian Schirner; Clara Wobbe |
| Abstract: | How do asylum seekers affect host-country economies from a supply and demand perspective? What share of such immigration shocks is absorbed by existing vs. new businesses? To study these questions, we combine exclusive business registration and asylum seeker data for the universe of German districts over 2007-2021. We address endogeneity in asylum seeker allocation by exploiting rule-based allocation quotas as an instrument. A one SD treatment (10 asylum seekers/1, 000 inhabitants) leads to 0.7 new businesses (7.9% increase) including 2.7 full-time jobs per 1, 000 inhabitants. A sector-level analysis suggests that the founding of new businesses is both supply- (additional workforce) and demand-driven (need for basic goods/services), while the demand effect kicks in first. District-level employment data shows that total job creation is about four times larger, suggesting that 75% of the immigration shock is absorbed by existing businesses. |
| Keywords: | asylum seekers, business registrations, host-country economy |
| JEL: | F22 J20 L26 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12151 |
| By: | Hector Blanco; Noémie Sportiche |
| Abstract: | Prior research shows that restrictive zoning regulations are major drivers of rising housing costs and residential segregation in the United States. In response, a growing number of state and local governments are passing laws to allow for denser housing in strictly zoned localities, despite entrenched opposition from incumbent residents. This paper examines whether incumbent residents' responses undermine the success of these policies by studying new construction permitted under Massachusetts Chapter 40B; one of the longest-standing and most productive examples of a housing policy that bypasses local zoning laws. Exploiting hyperlocal variation in residents' proximity to new 40B buildings, we find that only a subset of larger 40B developments cause property values to decrease, and that this effect is both highly localized and only emerges in the longer term, many years after these developments are proposed. Focusing on these larger developments that are more likely to elicit resident reactions, we find that only a fraction of incumbent residents move out after their approval and that the magnitude of these migration responses is insufficient to undermine policymakers' desegregation goals. We also do not find evidence that incumbent residents become more politically active against future development, as they are no more likely to vote in local or general elections nor are they more likely to vote for repealing Chapter 40B after 40B developments are proposed near their homes. |
| Keywords: | zoning, housing prices, migration, political participation |
| JEL: | R52 R23 R28 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12140 |