“Labor migration: Theory and reality.” In The Unsettled Relationship: Labor Migration and Economic Development. Edited by Demetrios Papademetriou and Philip Martin.

Reviews the theory and empirical research on the association between migration and development in sending communities

Balanced growth theory suggests that emigration should lead to a narrowing of income differences between sending and receiving countries

- Furthermore, emigration should be self-stopping because wages rise as people leave and remittances promote development and new jobs

Asymmetric development theory suggests that emigration increases differences between sending and receiving countries for many reasons, including . . .

- Migrants don’t want to return, their remittances are used unproductively, they retire upon their return, skills learned abroad aren’t useful back home, children in sending countries don’t value education because they can make more at a low skilled job abroad, etc.

- In reality, the major effects of emigration on development tend to be negative; these effects can be linked to what Martin terms the “3 R’s”

Recruitment: Employers tend to recruit the best workers

- Would this change if recruitment were government regulated?

Remittances: Remittance rarely promote economic development

- Would this change if local infrastructure channeled this money more effectively?

Returns: Although formal recruitment policies often specify limited duration of work, many migrants stay abroad

Estimated that the US population would only be 1/3 of its current size if it included only the descendents of those who arrived before 1800

“Immigration, Domestic Migration, and Demographic Balkanization in America: New Evidence for the 1990s.”

 - Much of the current debate surrounding immigration has centered around the economic impacts for native-born wkrs, taxpayers, and government programs

- Frey, rather, focuses on the social and demographic impact of recent immigration

- Migrants still tend to settle in a small number of traditional port of entry areas

- International migrants tend to come in “chains” and move to the same areas where the family has already settled

- This inflow of migration pushes out low-income, less skilled domestic workers, who then migrate to different areas

- Domestic migrants are much less tied to one place and move where labor is more abundant

- Uses census data to show that the metropolitan areas with the highest rates of international immigration also tended to have non-negligible of out-migration of domestics

- Not all domestics leaving—mostly those with low education and low-skills (essentially negative selective of domestic out-migrants)

Why might low-skilled domestics leave when immigrants arrive?

- Low-skilled international immigrants might be competition for jobs

- These residents may hold the view that new immigrants contribute to higher crime, reduced services, and increased taxes

- Prejudice

- Could be a spurious association; blue-collar jobs may have decreased while white-collar and low-paying service jobs have grown

- This demographic balkanization will causes areas where immigrants account for most of the demographic change to become increasingly multicultural, younger, and more bifurcated in their race and class structures

- At the same time, areas where domestic migrants account for most demographic change will become less multicultural, and will differ from migrant areas in their social, demographic, and political dimensions

- Census projections suggest that in the near future, a handful of states will have a large share of nonwhites (in a few states whites ill be a minority) while other states will have almost zero nonwhites

- What sets this scenario apart from past patterns is its large geographic scope; will affect the entire country rather than just single metropolitan areas

“International migration and development in Mexican communities.” Demography, 33(2), 249-264.

Purpose of paper is to clarify link between international migration and economic development by conducting a detailed analysis of migrants’ decisions about savings and remittances from US

- Draw on new home economics theory

- Failures in Mexico’s capital markets may fuel out-migration and discourage productive investment in home economy

- Authors examine various factors related to quantity of remittances and how they are spent, including personal and hh characteristics, trip characteristics, community economic characteristics, and Mexico’s macro-economic climate

Results

- Remitting and saving are more likely the higher a migrant’s monthly earnings and the more stable his job situation in the US

- These behaviors become less likely as migrants build up time abroad, settle north of the border, and bring their spouses

- The more money a migrant paid to be smuggled into the US, the more he remits and saves in order to repay loans and finance next trip

- Migrants are more likely to remit when they come from economically strong communities with high wages, widespread self-employment, and high percentages of women employed

- In agrarian communities, migrants are more likely to remit if there exists an ejido

- Migrants are more likely to channel their dollars into productive investments if they have access to resources such as education, potential family workers, a migrant spouse, ejidos, and assets such as land, businesses, or housing

- Migrants without such resources tend to devote their assets to current consumption (nutrition, clothing, and shelter)

In sum, under the right circumstances (a high-paying US job, secure attachment to the US labor force, and access to capital resources in Mexico) the odds to productive investment rise substantially

- Even when dollars are spent on current consumption, they serve to improve standard of living

Heaven’s Door

Chapter 1: Reframing the immigration debate

- 10 “symptoms” of the immigration debate

1. Absolute number of current immigrants at an historic peak (although US population larger too)

2. Relative skills/economic performance of immigrants has declined

3. Immigrant earnings lag

4. Change in nation of origin (1950s: majority Europe and Canada, 1990s: latin America and Asia)

5. Immigrants effects on wages/economic opportunities for elast-skilled US workers (negative effects diffused all over US)

6. Effects in specific states with more generous welfare

7. Small measurable economic gains (cheaper goods and services diffused over all consumers, but difficult to measure)

8. Ethnic skill differentials do not close across generations

9. Ethnic capital (skills of entire group spill over to individuals)

10. Ethnic ghettos (like black ghettos) foster urban underclass

Chapter 2: The skills of immigrants

- Immigrants of 1960 less likely to be hs dropouts than natives; immigrants of 1998 almost 4 times as likely to be hs dropouts than native born

- These lower skill levels are accompanied by a widening wage gap upon entry to US

- However, we must consider that wage inequality in general has increased since 1980s (deunionization of American labor force, skill biased technology change (ex: introduction of PC increases the productivity of skilled workers more than unskilled), globalization of economy, etc.)

- We also must consider whether economic assimilation is a good thing

- Acquiring skills valued by US employers is good because it places less burden on the welfare state by reducing immigrant underclass, but the more immigrants look like US natives, the less natives benefit (complementary perspective)

Chapter 4: Labor market impact of immigration

- In the short run, low-skilled immigrants drive down wages of low skilled native borns and perhaps increase wages of complementary workers, but in the longer run concentrated immigration benefits capitalists (relocate to immigrant heavy cities) and causes native borns to migrate within US

- One methodological problem is that it’s difficult to tease apart whether immigrants cause economic improvements, or if they’re attracted to cities with growing economies

Chapter 5: Economic benefits from immigration

- Borjas argues that African Americans are biggest losers with regards to immigration because:

- Employers are the primary beneficiaries of immigration, but Blacks own small share of capital stock and are thus less likely to be in hiring class

- Immigrants compete with blacks in low-skilled labor market

Chapter 6: Immigration and the welfare state

- More recent immigrants more(less?) likely to use welfare

- Longer immigrants are in US, the more likely they are to use welfare (better knowledge of the US welfare system)

- Inconclusive evidence about whether immigrants “pay their way” or not

- Important to keep in mind that throughout discussions of assimilation and comparison of immigrants by date of entry, most analyses use repeated cross-sections and not longitudinal data

-Must think about who isn’t represented in these samples

Chapter 10: The goals of immigration policy

- Several potential strategies for selecting immigrants: family ties (current US emphasis), country of origin (past US emphasis), SES characteristics (Canadian points system), refugees

- Discussion of open market for visas (sliding scale for price based on sending country GDP): would increase skill level (although employers seeking less skilled workers would likely find ways around this), but there are moral issues (should liberty be for sale)

- Borjas acknowledges that evaluating immigration from a “what are the economic benefits for the US” perspective is only one way

Chapter 11: Proposal for an immigration policy

- Borjas argues that the US should adopt a policy that favors skilled workers (higher skilled pay a larger proportion of their income as taxes, are less likely to be on welfare, and increase productivity of US firms)

- Argues in favor of a points system

- More diversity in immigrant sending countries could reduce ethnic enclaves

“How immigration affects US cities.” Center for Research and Analysis on Migration, Discussion Paper Series.

This paper describes the effects of immigration on overall population growth and the skill composition of cities

Specifically, it addresses the effects of immigration on 6 distinct domains

1. Population growth

- Overall, immigrant inflows to specific cities lead to relatively modest outflows of natives; thus immigrant inflows tend to drive up the population one-for-one

2. Composition of the city’s workforce

- High immigration cities tend to have relatively more low-skilled people in the population

- This affect isn’t necessarily causal, however, because city-specific demands might attract both immigrants and low-skilled workers (for example, lots of new construction)

3. Local incomes and structure of local economy

- Low-skilled workers experience slight decrease in wages, whereas high-skilled workers experience slight increase in wages

4. Local housing market

- No major differences in housing prices in high immigrant cities

5. Revenues and expenditures

- The average immigrant pays a little less in taxes than the average native, but is also much less likely to receive benefits

- However, once the children of immigrants are taken into account, immigrants impose a net fiscal burden

6. Local externalities

- Immigrants may get in the way of effective governance because they have different values, make it difficult to enforce “good” behaviors (compared to a more homogeneous society), and cause conflict with natives

- This line of reasoning suggests that cities with high immigration would have lower output per capita, lower wages, and lower property values, but the evidence cited above suggests this isn’t the case